just a housewife.....

One of my friends was sitting at a cafe where a western woman started a conversation with her. She asked my friend, ``what do you do?'' My friend replied, ``Nothing, I am just a housewife.''

In another incident, one day one of my friends husband came home from office and found the house in mess, children playing outside, dog sitting on sofa watching TV and wife still in bed. He woke up his wife and asked if everything was alright. The wife casually replied, ``Yeah, all well... Just that every evening you ask me what did I do the whole day. Well, today I didn't do that.''

No need to explain these two incidents as they carry heavy message in them.

A housewife slogs the whole day investing in humans, enabling them to perform better physically, emotionally and economically and thereby contribute more substantially to the society. But she is referred as``just a housewife''. The husbands are often seen confronting them scornfully what they did the whole day - as if they have only relaxed. These housewives and also many other such women remain invisible to the society for their contribution towards development.

India has a huge force of these fine and efficient workers, whose contribution in the society is huge and invaluable but it cannot be rated in economic terms. Unfortunately this contribution is seldom recognised and this force remains invisible to everyone, especially to economists.

This fifty percent of the nation's population is building homes, educating children, nursing those who are unwell, looking after people's health and nutrition; they also look after the cattle at home and till the agriculture fields, which their families own, bring water for everyone from far away places and do so many other odd jobs - but their diligent service to the society is mostly taken for granted. Their indirect but significant contribution to nation's economy is not taken in the purview of economic activities.

Mind you, there is no day off for this work force and no short breaks; they are on duty seven days a week and 365 days a year.

Often a question is asked as to why such low participation of women in labour - the answer is simple - they are not low in numbers but they are invisible.

Thankfully, a concern is emerging and the issue is now reaching the conference rooms. Recently, it was raised by a few concerned voices at an interface organised in the state capital, Delhi..

The event was a joint effort of Friederich Ebert Stiftung (FES) - a German Political Foundation and Women's Feature Service (WFS) - India's one and only women's feature syndicate. Damayanti Sridharan, senior advisor FES and Pamela Philipose, the Editor WFS were the brains behind the interface.

Eminent speakers like Bina Agarwal, the Director Indian Institute of Economic Growth (Delhi University), Reiko Tsushima, the Senior Gender Specialist of International Labour Organisation (ILO), Sunita Dhar of Jagori - a civil society organisation extensively working on issue of violence against women, social activist and politician Subhashini Ali, Senior development journalist Usha Rai and many more voices straight from the field shared their experiences and thoughts to take the issue to some logical solution.

What everyone felt was a need for the social workers, activists and other intellectuals to evolve ways so that this unpaid and unrecognised work by women force is acknowledged.

It will however start when women themselves will start valuing their meaningful contribution to the society.

Now we go back to the first two anecdotes - when my friend told the western woman that she was ``just a housewife'', the western woman had instantly snapped her with her comment, ``But being housewife is a 24 hour job of immense responsibility. You are doing so much for the society.''

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