'The perfect victim' & how patriarchy thrives through convenience disguised as culture

'Mrs.' captures the quiet oppression of housework but misses the unseen burden of working women’s ‘second shift’.

There is a moment in Mrs., a Hindi remake of the Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen, when the camera lingers on a kitchen sink that refuses to stop leaking. The water keeps dripping, an endless cycle that mirrors the film's central theme: the relentless drip of patriarchy.

The kitchen, with its dirty dishes and clogged pipes, becomes the ultimate metaphor for a woman’s place in a home, not just as a caretaker of domestic tasks but as a silent victim of the oppressive system that stifles her every move.

In Mrs., this quiet frustration builds like a slow-simmering pot of resentment, a fate all too familiar for many women (maybe not all!).

At its core, Mrs. tells the story of Richa, a young woman who enters her new life with optimism, eager to build a home with her husband, a ‘well-educated’ and seemingly progressive ‘gynecologist’.

The husband is the kind of man that many would call a ‘good guy’—he is educated, polite, and outwardly progressive. Yet, as the film skillfully reveals, it’s not just the overt cruelty of patriarchal men that enslaves women but also the subtle, everyday actions that perpetuate inequality.

His clinical knowledge of the female body as a gynecologist gives Richa false hope that he might understand her needs on a deeper level. But he knows her body, not her soul.

His actions speak volumes as he dismisses her desires for intimacy, calls her kitchen-drenched body “sexy,” and later uses that same phrase as an accusation—an accusation that she is nothing more than the sum of her domestic duties.

Richa’s life is a silent testament to the ‘devaluation’ of housework, reduced to nothing more than a “mere task” rather than being recognised for the skill, effort, and dedication it requires.

Housework—be it cooking, cleaning, or tending to the needs of family—is often dismissed as mundane, as though the care and precision needed to run a home are somehow less significant and sophisticated than the structured work that men engage in outside.

The kitchen, once a space of creation and nurturing, becomes a symbol of servitude, where Richa’s labour is invisible, deemed unworthy of praise or respect.

The lack of agency in her life becomes even more pronounced when her husband belittles her work, telling her that all she does is "housework," while he, with his prestigious office hours and “technical” job, is celebrated as hardworking.

This stark contrast between the perceived glamour of a man’s work and the invisible, uncelebrated nature of a woman’s role in the home highlights a deeply ingrained societal belief: that a woman’s labour within the four walls of her home is less valuable, less demanding, and less worthy of recognition than the work men do outside.

The real horror of Mrs. is not in the grand gestures of violence or abuse, but in the quiet, everyday subjugation that so many women face in their marriages.

Richa is not beaten or cursed, but she is made invisible. Her aspirations, her independence, her dreams—none of them matter once she steps into the role assigned to her by society.

She is to be the ‘perfect’ wife, the one who cooks, cleans, and quietly supports her husband. As her emotional and psychological needs are ignored, Richa is slowly chipped away until she no longer knows who she is, only what she is supposed to be.

This oppressive atmosphere is not limited to the men in Richa’s life. The film also examines the complicity of other women in perpetuating these systems.

Richa’s mother-in-law, her bua (aunt), and even her own mother dismiss her struggles, either downplaying them or advising her to “adjust” and “apologize” for standing up for herself.

The conversation around gender roles in Mrs. is not just about what men do to women; it’s about how women, too, have internalized these norms and pass them down through generations.

Richa’s scenes with her mother are particularly poignant, highlighting how the normalization of oppression is passed down, often in the guise of care and concern. The generational cycle of female subjugation is a painful reality, one that many women live with every day, without ever questioning the structures that keep them in place.

There are no loud confrontations or dramatic showdowns, but rather a slow, creeping realization that a woman’s life is no longer her own. The mundane tasks of household chores are transformed into acts of silent rebellion, a subtle but powerful commentary on the emotional and psychological toll that domestic life can have on women.

However, while Mrs. is a poignant and powerful film that explores the emotional and psychological impact of patriarchy, it does not highlight a critical issue that needs to be addressed, especially in South Asian society: the growing burden of the ‘second shift’ that women carry.

The second shift, a concept popularized by sociologist Arlie Hochschild, refers to the unpaid labor performed at home after paid work at a job.

In today’s world, where an increasing number of women are entering the workforce and pursuing their careers, they are still expected to shoulder all of the responsibilities at home.

This burden is not just about cooking and cleaning—it extends to the emotional labor of keeping the household running, taking care of family members, and ensuring that everyone’s needs are met. Men, on the other hand, are not expected to come home and work.

The imbalance between men and women in terms of domestic responsibility continues to be a pressing issue, one that films like Mrs. rarely explore in depth.

While Mrs. does an excellent job of exposing the oppressive nature of patriarchy within the home, it does not fully address how women’s roles are evolving in the modern world.

The second shift that women face—working full-time while still being expected to take care of all the household chores with little to no help from their partners, remains largely unacknowledged in mainstream discourse.

This dual burden creates a kind of invisible exhaustion, a feeling that is rarely a point of conversation, yet is all too familiar for millions of women.

It is important for filmmakers to represent not only women who are victims of overt patriarchy, but also those who face the quiet struggle of balancing work and home life.

The modern woman, while empowered to succeed in her career, is still bound by the invisible chains of domestic expectations which unequally distribute household duties among men and women.

In conclusion, while Mrs. does an excellent job of addressing the issues of misogyny and domestic oppression, there is still much work to be done in representing the struggles of women who face the ‘second shift’ in the workforce.

For change to happen, we must not only address the overt expressions of patriarchy but also challenge the subtle, everyday systems that continue to oppress women in both public and private spaces.

Until that happens, films like Mrs. will continue to serve as a reminder of how far we still have to go.