Am I A Feminist? Even If I Am -is That Bad ?

Perhaps he meant "for a regular / average" Indian housewife. Maybe you can clarify this with him and report back here.

More about the 'you are a feminist' later. : )

He is right about "for a normal Indian housewife, the scene would not be such a trigger." Why? Because:

In a household of that kind, the roles and hierarchy are well-defined and all are willing participants. The DIL's take care of the kitchen and house, men take care of making money. The responsibility of a smoothly running household is the elder DIL's and she takes pride in it like a working woman does in her job's responsibilities. Like a working woman would half-apologize to a fellow-worker for being late on an update or response email, she does to her family for the delayed chai. She is the "mentor" for the younger DIL and hence proud that her mentee is doing well. Mentors in the corporate and academic worlds know how rare it is to find mentees worth the mentor's time and effort.

Injured DIL doing seva - let it be left to her judgement whether or not she can perform her duties with the injury. When Serena Williams and Kerri Walsh win championships or gold medals while pregnant, they are applauded. No one will criticize them for playing strenuous sports while a few weeks pregnant. Similarly, if the DIL is willingly doing her kitchen work with an injured hand, so be it. Let's not get into pregnancy is not an injury wala funda.

About feminists and what is abnormality in an Indian housewife ... maybe later. : )

 

My husband would have been served a glass of cold tap water for a week if he made a comment like that. Served over his head, I meant.

 

No, it’s not like that mostly as far as I know nowadays atleast with the circle I know. Doesn’t happen often. I just laughed at the scenes and it’s a typical Indian serial backdrop which occurs in almost many TV serials. These kind of daughter in laws are portrayed like very obedient, absolutely devoted to their husbands no matter how much they are ill treated by their husbands or their in laws. Sometimes watching them makes me so upset about these portrayals and I would have blurted out my disappointments often.

Regarding feminism - if one voicing their displeasure in making the women being portrayed as subservient without any self respect is called feminist so be it.

 

Winterhue, you are absolutely normal... abnormal are the tv serial ones ... Most of them ( at least the ones I know) talk about how in-laws family is taking advantage of them, how we need to play tactics when deal with in-laws unfair intrusions... I think most of todays women are smart, winterhue... They don’t serve and most of them are not looking for the gold medals from in-laws... but then there are the unfortunate ones.. maybe the tv serial is about them ... But if they are happy serving in life ( or serial) no need to worry, after all they are the apple of their in-laws.. If they are not the apple of their in-laws and husband still after serving, then there is a problem... I feel sad for these group of women actually..

 

The most important thing here is that it is a Malayalam channel; we all know how keralites and bengali's challenge the limits/boundaries of conventions and delve into human foibles like no other cultural group in desh.. ......In this story too there are three brothers and two of them have wives, whereas the third one apparently doesn't. However he is also being taken care of by the other two. I could only RFLOL...

The OP couple have to watch more of that serial and report back on the developments.... It might turn out that there is no lessons for feminism... but something totally different.