Women, It's time to #Breakfree from Dirty Laundry

January 19, 2015 2 Comments

"I want to Break Free". It was Queen playing on my FM. "I want to breakfree". The song has been an old favorite and every time it plays, I could not resist to stop by and gyrate on the number.

That day was no different. I was getting ready for the office and found my matching scarf missing. A little nudge on memory told me that I have kept it in laundry last week. A tour through the over occupied laundry baskets including a deep dive, down under the soiled heap of cloths, I saw my cuties scarf lying head down and soiled. I was heartbroken seeing the pending pile of "to-do" laundry. Since, I was getting late for office, I picked another scarf and made a move, promising self to clear the laundry in evening, post return from office.

T'was 8:30 pm in evening when I returned home.I had a long day at office, handling client emergency. I was asked for my intervention on long pending brand positioning and continuous meeting took the toll on me, so much that I forgot my promise of clearing up the laundry. Next morning, my search for another fabric led me to the washing room. Revisiting the even "sorry state" of laundry basket, left me heart broken. I missed my previous household help who used to do the laundry. Alas, I could not find other maid for laundry and was solely dependent on my washing machine. Without wasting a minute, switched on the machine and randomly inserted cloths inside, switched on the "regular" setting to do the washing and rushed for office while putting a reminder on my phone to "clear the laundry from Machine". On my return when I opened the machine door to wring out the cloths, My heart sank seeing my new Off white Kurta turning multi colored courtesy the maroon pajama that I washed it with. Gosh! It was my brand new buy from Dubai Mall and I have spent a Moolah on it.

No Hell Hath Fury Like A Woman scorned
Exactly at that time, my husband rushed in and dropped a bunch of his laundry near the basket. I lost my cool and gave a heads down to my husband that why is he mere dumping the loads without clearing the old ones? Mister not willing to take it heads down, gave back saying that I am being a careless wife who is not giving enough attention to house but job, friends and blogs. It is my duty to take care of house and doing the laundry with help of Bai. "I have been asking you to hire a bai for laundry but no, you just get over the top cleanliness freak and don't want to delegate" He said.

#IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob
Now which women does not want to keep a maid? Indeed I wanted to keep a maid but since none of them, wanted to do laundry and those who wanted to do, wanted to come at noon when we are at office. I tried to resonate this with my husband but Mr. Gupta has this head full of old school notion that "it is woman who takes care of house and man earns livelihood. And if I wanted vice -versa, he would be happy to leave his job and take care of entire household and Missus can earn.

Phew! These men! All my reasoning fell deaf on his ears and but off course, we did not speak that night, neither next morning. I was woken up by the sound of washing machine. I jumped to the other room to find Mister doing the laundry. I felt guilty of fighting with my husband and tried to charm him, smiled but all garnered me no response. My guilt was broken seeing the wash load as it was all my husband's cloths only and how he did not cared to add few of my cloths. Heartbroken again.

When I reached office, a friend called me in to help her shortlist a female model for the new ad of the detergent brand that they were handling. "Why just female model" was my question to her. She smiled and said- Off course, it is a detergent powder's ad and ideally it is a female who does the laundry.  I was like "Aaarrrgggh". I suggested her a brand new idea of breaking the stereo types and this time, set a new precedent in society by positioning a male model to do the laundry. To support my argument, I showed her the following statistics that I want to show all of you- 

She could easily associate with the statistics and was sold on my idea of "changing the way laundry is being projected in Indian Households". Now it was time for execution. We set up together and worked on to build this idea further on to "new age" brand campaign. We discussed how we can deploy stats and create an ad showcasing Alfa -metrosexual man who cares to help his wife/mother doing laundry. We hoped for campaign to work. 

I could hear Queen crooning in my head- I want to break free. In the meantime, I worked on my personal agenda to break this stereotype at my own home.  You know what I did? Well well here we go-

1) I ignored my husband's dry cloths on strings for a couple of day until he took notice and did it himself

2) I ran a bucket load of garments in machine excluding my husband's cloths

3) I ran another bucket load but this time used my husband's cloths with me too. he felt offended that I washed my trousers with his innerwears and why I should not wash his cloths with mine again. It was not intended strategy  but it worked in fluke ;)

4) I washed few of his cloths using "15 minutes" quick wash and pat came orders that "he will do his laundry on his own and I should not spoil his cloths". Lolz what a respite.

5) I often put my/ his cloths separately on machine and take support of "being busy in kitchen" making buttermilk for him, requesting him to dry the cloths. He understood the trick and still does the needful. #LoveMarriage

Source
Now I am facing another challenge regarding getting the home linens like bed sheet etc washed. Well given my husbands proactive help in doing the laundry, this one I do not mind much and do on my own, asking him to just wring out the linen in balcony ;) But given his overall support, I do not mind getting them washed. After all, doing laundry is no longer a woman's responsibility in my house. How about your house? Come join the revolution with Blogadda and Ariel!

Time to #BreakFree!
__________________________________________
“I am writing for #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.”


The autor is half Human, half machine. Go Figure or just revel in what I write

2 comments:

  1. Am glad you settled the little laundry war.
    If only had their mom's thought them well. We'll here's to new beginnings!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous23 January

    Yeah. Great points (Y)

    ReplyDelete

Hi Folks,

You heard me...now its time for Bouquets and Brickbats!

My Social Media Channels