The financial demands on the Indian families are becoming fiercer by day. The sky rocketing cost of living, increasing expenses on education of children, increasing cost of housing properties in India force every family in India to look for ways and means of increasing the household income. As a result, women in India who were mostly known as homemakers are forced to go for jobs and take up even careers that were considered only suitable for men such as working in night shifts in call centers or BPOs. They are left with no option but to fend for their families in all possible ways.

Working women in India are faced with lot more challenges than their counterparts in the other parts of the world. In India men do not share on most of the household chores, it is women who have to cook, clean the house, do the dishes, wash clothes, get their children ready for school etc. Men just took care of few chores that are to be dealt outside the house. So the major burden of running the family is on the shoulders of women. It was alright for women to handle all the chores as long as they were homemakers. Now with their increasing need for getting some income for the family, they have to work all the more harder. They have to take up a 9 to 5 job plus handle all the household chores that they handled as a homemaker. Men’s role has not changed much.

Women have started sleeping lesser than before because only when they wake up early they can cook for the family, get themselves ready for the job, get their children ready for the schools, so on an average, women lost 2 hours of sleep per day and up to 14 hours sleep per week.

If they happened to work in a highly pressurized environment, then they will bring home their work and that cuts few more hours of sleep. It is not just about the reduced sleep, but such a lifestyle builds stress. This stress is passed on to the family and frustration level builds up in the family. This leads to relationship problems.

They have to handle harassment's at their work place, sometimes just over look things to ensure that their job is not jeopardized in anyway. Many Indian families are still living as joint families along with the parents and in-laws. This adds to their stress further because they have to please all the family members of her husband. Listen to their complaints that they make against her and turn deaf ears towards them and so on. Overall, majority of women in India look towards or live in the hope that things will change. Some of us have given up that hope and learnt to accept that nothing can be done about it. India has a long way to go before our women will be able to live their lives to the full.

Even though I can't fully understand how difficult this must be, I hope that eventually things will get better for the women in India. We have at least some help from our spouses here and even then we still have very little time to ourselves as well. It looks as though women are meant to work hard regardless of where they are in the world.

As Neetu has mentioned, Indian Women are struggling a lot in the families than men, and i say that men also should have an active role/part in home making, not women alone should have these type of problems, few of them help their wives but few doesn't understand, so we women should pray and try that these men should understand and change thenselves.

That's so terrible! I don't understand completely, but I hope things get better!! That's not very cool!!

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-Brittany Brydahl

As a typical Indian women, it is our responsibility to serve our family. It becomes difficult to manage when we are the working one.At office, we have to give our best performance & at the same can't neglect the household works.
It's the fact that we have to cut our sleeping hours and manage it anyhow. In such situation our hubby can be the helping hand.With better understanding, both office and house can be managed in a better way.

what do you mean by a typical Indian women ?

To make work and family go hand in hand women seems to sacrifice many things. I too aspire of standing on my feet one day, and hence likely to encounter all the troubles and tribulations mentioned in the thread. But a women has the strength to overcome such situations. Lets wish and hope that soon the scenario in India changes and the working environment will be more cordial and safe for women with maximum support and backing from her family.

Today most of the working women don't want to have their inlords with them.They are happy with their nuclear family."Typical " means somewhat traditional.We always try to give our best so that we can make others happy.Don't you think it's not easy to make every happy at the same time?

Yeah..its really difficult to please everyone when people seems to have different choices, opinions and views.. But when you stick to truth and do right things, you are likely to have inner happiness.