What a Pandemic it is to be a Female Educator!

What a pandemic it is to be a female educator!

Three weeks ago, I poured on my dissatisfaction with one of my close friends who had organized a talk series about the impact of online teaching and learning in the education sector about why his series had no female educators as a speaker.

“We did it in a hurry and realized what a mistake we had done.” He answered accepting the blunder.

Last week, I huffed and puffed around working as one of the core members of a virtual conference which was bringing national and international speakers on the same. I didn’t want to repeat the same blunder and was asking our team to make the panel gender-inclusive right from the beginning. The outcome; we had one female speaker among the ten speakers that too from the United States of America.

Whose mistake was it?

This question has been lingering in my head.

The answer is no one.

The problem was neither with the intention of my male team members; they never thought female educators were less capable, nor it was the problem of all the female educators who declined our invitation.

When social media is flooded with #WorkfromHome slogans, I wonder how many women are juggling to find a balance between office work and the household chores.

Amid this chaos, being able to peep in closely into the households of few of my female colleagues who are a crucial part of a team enthusiastically walking on the path to becoming the trailblazers of interactive online education, I feel for the other female educators too. I can understand how for so many female educators working from home and advocating for online education is a burden. I can understand how they are expected to be teaching while at the same time cooking meals for their family. I can make sense of why they are turning off their camera while they are talking to their students because on the other side they are patting their crying toddlers.

Married female educators are facing greater challenges than unmarried ones. It doesn't mean that unmarried women aren't having any issues. Some relatives and friends might think that if you’re at home you must be available for long lunches or emergency chores. When teaching itself wasn't considered a profound profession in our society, working from home and teaching online isn't being taken that seriously by so many of our families.

Who is to blame for this? The families or especially the husbands?

I don't know. 

What I know is that in one way or the other our society bounds us with untold expectations and a sense of perfectionism. Work from home has broken the barrier of what females need to fulfill as a mother, a wife, an employee, a sister, a teacher as separate and made it wholesome. This notion has now slowly started to become a mindset that both men and women are carrying inside their heads. When we are talking about the new normal that we are shifting into, we are ignoring the untold new normal that our families are unknowingly transferring to the new generation that household chores are always the work of women and when they work from home, kitchen, children, family, and husband must be their first priority. Hidden values and models from our cultures, families and other sources are still influencing our choices in ways that we often don’t anticipate or understand and that have far-reaching consequences for our lives. As I am writing this, I am not here to blame any males or any family members because I have seen some of my male friends and colleagues being very careful about sharing the responsibilities of both home and children.

Recently, one of my Instagram friends sent a direct message writing “you are a lucky woman to have found your husband” on the story that had me and my husband dancing after a long week. I replied, "I think it is the other way around for him too.” In cases like these, I wonder whether my husband is supportive because he genuinely is a flawless human being or is it because I have shared my need for space and need for his equal contribution in whatever we decide to do. The answer is the latter. Not only him, we both make mistakes about each other if we assume about the roles and support that we are expecting but having an open and honest conversation helps. I understand this holds true in my case as I have the privilege of expressing in front of my husband and my in-laws which might not be true for so many other females working from home.

Therefore, I think in this pandemic as we are cleansing our hands, a little cleansing of our mindset would definitely make our lives better.  A little self-reflection with a pinch of self-acceptance comes handy along with the sanitizers we are using this pandemic.