By Shravani Shete
The civilization mankind has evolved in, idealism could be referred to the assisting factor in the pursuit of achieving perfection. And since then until now, only the motives behind it appear to have changed with time. In Layman terms the word ideal interprets to - existing only in the imagination, desirable or perfect but not likely to become a reality, which quite literally explains it to us! Despite this we all in some or the other way make great efforts to achieve idealism or want to set an example worth striving for.
Through this write-up I would like to throw light on a few aspects of our society's paradigm of the ideal woman and how this concept has evolved over time either positively or negatively, thus the title ‘Woman is no paradigm’.
In this fast-moving century, there are a lot of things that yet remain unchanged, one amongst them is the stereotypical association of women to the word’s kitchen and primary caretakers. Understanding it in a positive notion, a research by BBC News in 2014 shows that, women are better at multitasking then men due to their continuous indulgence in household activities, taking care of their children and doing routine chores while handling work. It also discusses about how women experience significant career interruptions in order to attend to her family’s needs. Despite this there are claims being made that the children of women who work in corporate jobs do not get proper care growing up. In fact, in a research done by the pew research centre in the year 2009 and 2015 show the following results,
Due to the fear of the above notion women often choose to bound themselves to the concept, ‘behind every successful man there is a woman’ in accordance to this saying, they tend to make a self-compromising deal with themselves that involves doing the hard work, taking care of the household and children and in the end receiving a share of happiness when they see their man succeed. But what about the woman’s stature? and doesn’t denying someone with ability, their sense of complete achievement feel like an offense?
This is not just the case with women in rural areas but also the women in urban areas share a nominal portion in this. A Lot of women leave jobs with prestigious positions to take care of their household, assuming that after a while when their young kids grow up, they will resume or continue working again. But what the fail to realize is that opportunities do not shower upon us like confetti! Once a chance or an opportunity is gone it cannot be brought back. Maybe after reading this you will all want to ask the question, why do women do this to themselves? The answer is merely because of a fake notion of idealism toward women that has existed in our society. But it’s time we realize the antiquity of it and simply let a woman do things in her own way and differently, as by a fact we know herd mentality has done no good the harm, and at the same time make a woman aware of the importance of building their own self-stature.
Another such idealistic misconception the society has built up for woman is how fitness is misunderstood for exemplar body types. Scrolling through our Instagram feed, all of see and spend time admiring actresses, models or gym trainers for their perfect body types, but what don’t correctly understand is that, it is their idea of a perfect body type. Every individual is assisted with different biological compositions to support their body growth and hence we all seem to have non identical bodies. This misperception has both positive and negative effects. The positive effect contributes to individuals being motivated towards adapting a healthy lifestyle and exercising to keep themselves fit and healthy or what most of us call ’being in shape’, whereas the negative effect leads to drastic consequences such as one undergoing surgeries, therapies or even taking dangerous medication that may be fatal and all this to just maintain or reduce to a certain body type. Hence, we should embrace ourselves just the way we are and help those who are struggling to realize the same.
Mentioned above are a few of those many examples of epistemological idealism, meaning knowledge process the mind can grasp which is conditioned by their perceptibility, that is, it is a mere justified belief or opinion.
Though concluding this write up these different idealisms or paradigms in our society will never come to an end. We can only hope that with time everyone is educated with such facts that will give them a better perception not only about women in our society, but every individual and give everyone the freedom to make their own ways without being preyed on by some stereotypical ideals.
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