Leave it up to women to choose

A strong independent woman has all the tricks up her sleeve to create the grocery list for a house while also maintaining excel sheets with large volumes of data for the company she's working for. An independent woman must have it all or at least must know how to. However, does an independent woman have to know it all? 

Being a woman is never easy. Well, truth be told being a human where there is a challenge waiting for you at every corner is never easy. But the women in today's context are dealing with complexities that they do not have to go through at all. You might look back at the time when Elizabeth Cady shared with the world Declaration of Sentiments to illustrate the inferior status that has been imposed on women in our world and think how far we have come. And there's no denying that we have. The incredible things women have contributed to our society are there for everyone to see. Women are everywhere. But is that all women have wanted to achieve? Do we put our thoughts into what women truly want?

The answer is that there is no one particular answer that fits all. Like any other human being, a woman can and should have the choice to do whatever she wants. Everyone knows that basic rights and opportunities did not come to women as easily as they should have. Their gender has been treated like an obstacle for centuries and somehow, even when we see women thriving and achieving incredible things, they still have to face issues in their everyday lives. 

One of them is the pressure of doing it all and feeling obligated to shine in every sector to prove their worth.

Women today are working their hearts and soul to live up to the overwhelming expectations of people around them. Women must know how to handle both the pressure as well as come out triumphant no matter what. A working woman, especially in Bangladesh is expected to tackle all the work pressure for hours only to come home and continue with the household chores. 

We have stressed the importance of being a self-dependent working woman so much that we have forgotten one of the most important things that can truly help a woman unapologetically be herself, and that is her own choice. An independent woman is burdened with the immense pressure of tackling both household and office work. But do all women have to be great at everything to fit into "the perfect strong independent woman" mould? Is the pressure of handling both workplace and house on one individual fair? 

It is high time we understood that a woman does not have to do it all, unless she wants to. Sure, a woman can work both in the office and handle house chores. However, the emphasis should be on if she wants to. A woman might want to work outside, get a job, or be an entrepreneur. A woman might want to be a housewife as well. It should all depend on her own choice. She might want to handle both her house and her office, or she might want to choose to do just one of them. 

This is not a call to make women go back to the house abandoning the work arena. This is simply a call to bring attention to women's choices, letting them take the lead in their own life according to their choice, and respecting it.