"Oh, she's just a housewife. She doesn't work." REALLY?

Disclaimer: Since our society doesn't have many househusbands, this article will focus on housewives and subtly encourage homemaking for both women and men as a gender blind survival skill

If there is someone who is seriously undervalued and taken for granted, it's a housewife, especially the Indian housewife. Many, many Indian men have this nasty habit of dismissing housework as not a big deal, citing these reasons:

1. Household appliances like grinder, washing machine, ready made spice powder and mixes and others leave only 10% of manual work so don't complain.

The reply: Dosa, idli, chutney, sambar don't jump from the grinder to the dining table. The clothes washed by washing machine don't go dry themselves, fold themselves and iron themselves. Same with other tasks - manual effort is largely required. 

2. Don't complain - if it's hard, hire a maid.

The reply: This isn't complaining - it's women saying that they are indispensable and worth more than what you credit them for. I think y'all will only understand when Indian women do what 90% of Icelandic women did in 1975. Hire a maid? LOL, a housewife is an unpaid maid.

Lucky for you, Indian women aren't united

3. When men go out of home to study/work, they do housework too but you don't see them complaining that it's hard.

The reply: Taking care of only yourself is very different from taking care of a whole family - as a bachelor, you only clean up your mess and cook for yourself. But a housewife takes care of a whole family - triple the work amount, involving 'sildra velai'. It needs managerial skills, multitasking ability, memory power and forward thinking. Mental overload is real. I'll just give y'all an example:

Making a mental map, keeping tabs on bed covers and rugs, once a month washing, being aware of which stuff is dwindling in the pantry, bread, jam, eggs, spices, masala powder, etc and getting them before they completely run out, putting masala powder, coffee powder, sugar, salt, etc in jars, boiling water to ensure flasks always contain hot water, filling ice cube trays, surveilling the ceiling for cobwebs and cleaning them, remember which vegetable is in the fridge on the way to rot, and planning how to cook it, clearing the stove from soot, checking the gas connection, keeping tabs on grocery items and perishable items' price and plan according to budget, etc, etc.

PHEW. TIRED JUST READING IT? THEN IMAGINE DOING IT.

Yes

So, yes, a housewife works her ass off. She isn't sitting at home doing nothing. Housewives are enablers - they make you able to go to work every morning. What they do is invisible work. It's time for you to open your eyes and see the invisible work stay home moms do that keeps humanity functioning.

Certainly. Moms need to show the middle finger to the society that depreciates them.

And, no, men are not naturally inept at housework. They can do it just as well as women - just train sons at housework.

No work is gender adroit or maladroit. It only depends on proper training and practice.

And, yeah boys, we need more of you to become homemakers - trust me, then homemaking will be as an important topic as WW1 and WW2 and not dismissed as 'sitting at home doing nothing.'