A Working Woman

I enjoy being a "working woman" as named by the society. There are so many aspects of life I get exposed to & my education and hardwork get its due. There is a kind of confidence when I face the world but there were some "not so pleasant" experiences I have gone through. When I look back I am quite amused, as now I know how to cope to a certain extent.

• I had just got married and the only thing men would ask is if I knew how to cook. Their only way to believe it was to be invited home which I was never comfortable as they were just colleagues and not friends. According to me, to like cooking is more of a personal interest rather than being a working/non-working woman. I actually enjoy cooking but I did not want to relent to these males just to prove my cooking skills.
• There were some colleagues who would have a standard joke if they ever saw me eating of my lunch box. The joke would be 'Did your husband cook it for you?' and my standard response would be 'I am looking out for a cook, would you like to apply for the post'.
• There was one guy who out of the blue asks me 'How does your husband manage?'
• Recently one incident was a bit too much. I was leading a team which required the team members to put in stretched hours. My daughter was around 6 months old when I joined the project. Since my Mother is baby sitting her I had no worries at all and I worked as late as the job required. Once while having breakfast with 2 other team mates, I was stressing the point of staying late as we needed to cover lot of work. One of the guys tells me "I don't know why you stay so late. You should think about your daughter. Looks like you are really cruel and don't have a heart of a mother". I was taken aback. Without getting flustered or letting my emotions out I gave him the explanations and reasons.

I sometimes wondered what could be the basis of these questions. Then I came up with this theory. These questions usually come from men(my context here is the workplace) who haven't seen their mother working or is married to a house wife or is a bachelor who is just a 'baccha' in the world!!!