In our book club we are reading Sold by Patricia McCormick. Lakshmi is a 13 year old girl who lives in a small hut with Ama, her baby brother, and her stepfather in a small village on a mountain in Nepal. From what we read, I've noticed differences between the lifestyle they live and the lifestyle of people in other places, like where we live in New York. The details of the relationship between men and women, and the differences of the responsibilites, makes me grateful that I live in America rather than where Lakshmi does.
The value of a man and a woman in Nepal is a huge difference than what it is in New York. In Nepal, men have the higher power. Wives are basically used to bare him a son! "A son will always be a son, they say. but a girl is like a goat. Good as long as she gives you milk and butter. But not worth crying over when it's time to make a stew." While I'm thinking 'what a jerk the stepfather is' or 'that's not fair!' I do know that it's always been like that, it's not just the dad. Unfortunately for women in Nepal or towns of the same tradition, it's just how life is. Example when the stepfather gambles the little money that could have been spent on a tin roof, Ama says to Lakshmi "Even a man who gambles away what little we have on a fancy new coat, is better than no man at all." I think that's wrong- but in a bad way, it's most likely true. "I ask Ama why. 'Why', I say, 'must women suffer so?' 'This has always been our fate,' she says. 'Simply to endure,' she says, 'to triumph.'" This makes me grateful for living in America. Women can divorce a man who gambles away the little money they have, and live on their own. Women don't have to bow down to their husband at their feet, and they aren't treated almost as slaves who have no where to run away.
Living in Nepal it seems that kids never really get a chance to grow up. Most kids, at least that I know of, don't work on their own till 16 (at the youngest). You're not even allowed to work when you're a kid! Women/girls have to go back and forth to feed children in the sick seasons. They have to make trips to get water and grow food to eat or make money. But in America, the most work I have to do to get water is walk 3 feet away to go to the sink. It makes me think I take things for granted- that whatever issues you have you could be in Nepal walking miles just for a drink. We have water parks! While Lakshmi is dehydrated because the rain won't come. The children like Lakshmi know how to work to live. Their roof needs to be re-done when it rains too hard. While kids in America are complaining with their iPads and endless supply of food & shelter.
You have a point for sure. But life here isn't exactly easy either. Because of all the superficial goodies we have, like iPads, we have more work to be done. We have the people who create them, make them, sell them, use them, fix them, and possibly resell them. The cycle just continues. I am not saying we have it harder, but I do think that we are pretty equal in terms of work. It is just applied in different areas of life.
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