There’s a video doing the rounds, enthusiastically shared by even the wimmenz showing a small boy confusedly watching his (probably) mother exercising in front of the tv while his (probably) grandmother is doing all the housework.

Bherry bherry true of real life, right? Not
Bherry bherry funny, right? Not.

Please understand. These are ways to put women in their place, the kitchen and home. Where is the need to exercise when women simply have to draw water from the well, wash clothes, do the dishes and mop the floor, squatting if you please, don’t use the more convenient stick. Right? Wrong.

This type of thinking is the old-fashioned way of keeping women tied down. I have heard the menz, thaappaanmaar as I call them, sitting back in their easy chairs and declaring that women these days have it all easy. Mixers to grind, faucets for water, Shiva Shiva! In the past they used buckets filled with water drawn from the well. The masalas were ground on ammikkallu! What taste the food had cooked over firewood. Slurp, slurp. Now they don’t move much, and that’s why all these weight issues, diabetes and cholesterol too, says the uncle shaking his head disapprovingly.

This by the way, is the same uncle who drives to his office and sits under the fan or in an a/c room flicking paper the whole day. HE is not out there in the fields ploughing the land, harvesting, or cutting firewood or any number of things REAL MENZ used to do back in the glorious past. He also has a paunch that puts a nine-month pregnant woman to shame, not to mention high cholesterol levels, hypertension, diabetes to name a few. But no matter, he is menz after all and is allowed to pass judgement on wimmenz and whatever he says is all lapped up eagerly by everyone around, including the wimmenz, especially the wimmenz.

The wimmenz who are patriarchy’s ardent foot-soldiers copy his actions and shake their heads in disapproval too. They after all will be rewarded with scraps like being called ‘good women’ or kulasthreekal or some such equally obnoxious names they cherish so much, and actually secretly hunger for, for they know no better. Forgive them, Lord. Not me though, by the way.

In short, my dear sisters, what I wanted to tell you is, don’t fall for the you-don’t-need-exercising-if-you-work-at home kind of bullsh*t and least of all jokes based on it. These are NOT jokes, but arrows aimed at you, to subtly and not so subtly wound you into submission, mock you, even believe the nonsense at least subconsciously and make you feel guilty.

Remember do make life easier for older people, in fact most of us do that already! Also remember doing housework is good, it does burn calories (Surprise! Surprise! For the menz too!), but it cannot substitute for other forms of exercises. So go, do your thing because it is most important that YOU MUST BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING YOU WANT TO WITHOUT THE MENZ, THEIR CHAMCHI WIMMENZ, SOCIETY AND ITS GRAND UNCLE MOCKING YOU FOR YOUR CHOICES.

Please don’t fall for such as them or their jokes or share them. Think! Nobody wants us to do that and that’s really the problem. But defy everyone, THINK! Think twice before you hit that ‘forward’ button. My two cents.

© Shail Mohan 2023