On 16th August 2023, the Supreme Court of India declared that the term housewife would be abolished from local parlance. Women who run households would no longer be addressed by a label that boxed them into a stereotype. The politically correct replacement, homemaker, finally acknowledged a largely invisible, unpaid workforce. The change in nomenclature is welcome, but it does not promise any substantial shift in labour status or financial freedom. Yet, for the first time, housewives were recognised as a neglected group in DEI conversations. At the very least, it felt like a more respectful designation.
Across India, the total number of homemakers stands at 160 million - a staggering figure, though slowly declining as younger women awaken to the indignity of being financially dependent and having no say in family decisions. For decades, the word housewife has carried a menial undertone. In the popular film Dil Dhadakne Do, a group of women mockingly uses the term to imply unintelligence, as if a housewife’s abilities are limited to baking bread and staying out of intellectual conversations. The image of the homemaker remains stuck: a dutiful woman chopping vegetables on the kitchen slab, finding fulfillment in unclogging a sink brimming with dishes.
A homemaker is often noticed only during mealtimes, when she perfects a recipe, saves money during a financial crisis, cares for the elderly, raises children, and guards the family’s secrets. Perfection is expected of her. Sacrifice is her identity. Silent conformity is her virtue. But a slow shift is underway. The younger generation sees the label housewife as almost a slur. They refuse to become versions of their mothers and grandmothers - women who tied their identity to the shape of a roti or their husband’s promotion. These daughters want a different destiny. They seek independence: their own bank accounts, their own careers, and the freedom to rise on their own merit.
My own metamorphosis began when my son left for higher studies. I woke up to his empty room,the desk cleared of books, a lone school diary signed by me, and an open cupboard that created a vacuum in my heart. The years had slipped by. As I entered perimenopause, with its hot flushes and simmering resentment, I realised how redundant I felt in my own home. Friends told me to rest. That angered me. I wasn’t ready to retire from life.
After a year of indecision, I walked into a café, far from the pressure cooker’s whistle and the sink stacked with dishes. I sat among a group of 30-somethings who barely noticed me. My knowledge of which masala perfects ginger chai didn’t impress anyone. Seventeen years of my life felt erased. My experience as a homemaker held no value in a world ruled by algorithms, AI, and everything meta.
So, I decided to write. After all, I had written school notes and vegetable lists without a single typo. For the first time, I didn’t need to perform for anyone. I only had to prove myself to me. But first, I had to learn computer literacy, something I had ignored for 17 years while being a good wife, present mother, and dutiful daughter. My past successes no longer mattered in this digital world.
Learning digital tools was challenging, but gradually empowering. My depression began to lift as I started podcasting. I realised I had been gaslit into believing that the home would collapse without me. The challenges became my path to resilience, and with every recording, I felt myself step further into an identity of my own, one that countless homemakers across the country still dream of claiming.
Mohua Chinappa is a poet, an author and runs two podcasts, The Mohua Show and The Literature Lounge.
