Equality Among the Sexes
Gujarat,India 2009
A family carries their harvest across the bridge.
The women were smiling and laughing when they saw us. They walked ahead of the man. Most likely he had helped them heft their headloads to their heads and he was the last to leave the field.
Headloads…that is what Indians call it when you carry something on your head. You will often see slender women, bearing a huge headload, walking at a fast clip down the side of the road. I remember noticing their bare feet flashing beneath colorful, swaying skirts. I thought that they must be hurrying home to check on their children, to cook the mid-day meal, to do any of a thousand daily chores. I admired those women.