A Females Reality...You Just Don't Know Until You've Walked A Day in Our Heels

And here it is midweek but it feels as if it’s Monday.  It’s equally not a good thing when your brain works a day behind mentally.  I woke up thinking that it’s Tuesday.  Since Tuesday was actually a ball of ugliness at work and the evening wasn’t much better, how I could confuse things is beyond me.  Last night I didn’t sleep much for a myriad of reasons resulting in a very crabby Rubi this morning (note: I started to write this blog yesterday, Wednesday).  The only consolation, all the cursing and scowling and ow-ing while I wrestled with my locks last night resulted in a good hair day.  It’s all about the silver lining, I suppose (no, not really).

During the course of the later part of the evening a friend pinged me and I told him that I was contemplating a major life decision.  He was naturally curious and I told him, I think I’m going to get a sex change.  His response?  “NO!”  Rather emphatic, if you ask me. 

Now for those family members/older generation of family friends who are reading things, please don’t get worked up or upset.  These thoughts often run through our modern day generation heads.  With all the stress of managing/balancing work/life/kids (if you have them)/and other such nonsense, one tends to contemplate dire solutions to pretty hideous problems.  This was mine.  And let me tell you what led me to this proclamation.

Yesterday was challenging.  After literally months of being sick or close to sick or feeling just ‘off’ and then adding to it the fact that at work I’ve basically been thrown into the deep end, I guess things were going to come to a head whether or not I wanted it to.  Adding to all that general grossness of being a woman and the stresses that come with it, I was so over it. 

Going home after a long (stressful) day of working like a slave (maybe I’m exaggerating a bit) I wanted to do nothing more than sit on the couch and veg.  That wasn’t to happen.  At some point during the day I had gone to the ladies room and much to my horror I spied with mine eyes, grey hair.  We’re not talking about a few strands here, people.  We’re talking about what closely resembled a white rug, a toupee even.  I was horrified, pair that with the varied other things that we have to do in maintenance of ourselves and the evening took an abrupt turn for the worse.  Happiness was not to be had, at least my definition which would have been fuzzy pants, favorite slippers, a warm blanket and Adam Levine looking F-I-N-E on The Voice. 

As I stood weaving with exhaustion in the bathroom, slathering my hair with dark brown goo, I thought to myself, ‘how much easier would this be if I were a dude?’  Please tell me I’m not the only person on earth who wonders this!  Anyhow, it was just about this time when my aforementioned buddy pinged me and I told him about altering my state.  He pointed out that being a man was no easier than being a woman. 

Normally I have enough equilibrium and sense of fairness to recognize that sure, we all suffer our own realities.  Men, women, dogs, cats, penguins, wombats, we all deal with the lot that has been dealt to us and every one of these possess aspects of the negative.  But at that moment, with the world coming down upon my shoulder (or so it felt) I just couldn’t agree that men could possibly have it quite as hard as us women.

As I practically pulled half my hair out of a very tender scalp in the effort to make it resemble some sort of style, I told my buddy, in-between loud ‘ouch’s’, that although I understand that men had their own burden to bear and that sure there were probably a host of issues that were being dealt with on a psychological and physical level (to be honest I wasn’t being this prolific in that response), the female species had the males beat. 

Don’t be outraged.  Think about the following:

Girls are born with a whole heap of responsibilities from the get-go.  With boys no one really thinks, oh he’s not that cute but with girls they look at the wee babe and studies her closely to see whether she’s fetching, and in India/Bdesh/Pakiland?  The skin color.  The lighter, the better, sad enough.  She’s brought up with the understanding that she’s not quite as intelligent as her male counterparts (of course she is but she shouldn’t flaunt it because then they wouldn’t like it and run away) yet she has to figure out how to not only get a man, but hold onto him as well as learning to cook, clean and take care of the male members of her home.  This is only as little girls, that’s how soon we start to become brainwashed.

As we ‘bloom’ into adulthood, it just continues.  Are you pretty enough?  Are you smart enough and well rounded?  Be careful of what you eat for it all leads to not being able to get a good husband (funny how people say ‘good’ but can a man be ‘good’ if he’s judging you due to your weight anyhow?).  Can you make roti which are perfectly round?  Or cook daal and a meat dish?  Can you speak the language which your in-laws speak, even if you didn’t grow up in the same land mass?  Have you learned to keep your room clean because one day you’ll have to deal with a whole house, after all?  Make sure you’re always well groomed, always well dressed and well spoken.  Make sure to hide any rebellious streaks because men don’t like that, god forbid that you should think for yourself or function independently and if you can (and of course you’re a woman so you will) don’t let him know that you are. 

Don't go out alone, don't hang out with the wrong people, always dress modestly, stuff your feet into uncomfy shoes that give you corns and deform your toes damning you to a life of eternal agony but it sure will make your butt look good.  Pierce your ears because that will attract attention.  Do not be too boyish however don't be too girly.  Be one of the guys but wait...don't.  Make sure to work out, maintain a figure that will be pleasing to the eye (not your own silly, your opinion doesn't matter, remember?).  If you can't make that happen, then forget it, you're screwed.  If you can, then try to ignore the fact that as soon as you have a kid, you'll never quite get that figure back again, no matter how many hours you spend in the gym sweating and dying and chewing on celery.  It just won't happen but you're expected to try anyhow.  

When it’s time to get married be open to it, make sure you don’t have too high expectations.  Basically settle for the first man with a degree and who seems like he showers.  Totally ignore the fact that you have nothing whatsoever in common other than possibly the fact that you both breathe…the point is you got yourself a man!   And if you don’t compromise your expectations as well as dumb down your requirements for a life mate, just remember Sweetheart, you do not want to be without a husband to ‘take care of you’.  Never mind that you may just be intelligent enough to be able to do so anyhow, all on your own.

And after marriage?  It still doesn’t end, does it? 

Start to prove yourself worthy of the diamond on your left hand ring finger.  Indeed employ all the lessons of cooking and cleaning.  Make sure you have good taste and can impress everyone with your decorating skills (on a budget), how well you cook and how gracious a hostess you are.  Pop out a couple children within a few years (some are expected to do so within mere months of saying ‘I do’) and then bring them up right with the same values you had been (the same values which now are actually quite out-of-date but again do it anyhow and ignore your evolutionary gut instincts).  If you’re arguing with your husband, don’t let anyone know.  If you have a complaint, keep your mouth shut.  Put up with everyone’s opinion, no matter how degrading or negative it is because you’re a woman after all, that’s what you do.  Don’t be a shrew.  Be liberal.  What is good for the gander is in fact not good for the goose.  Keep them in-laws happy because if you don't...well welcome to the gossip mill.

Cook, cook, cook.  Do not complain.  In fact, while you’re cooking, look enthusiastic and over the moon happy that you’re doing so but don’t forget to make sure you look pretty because otherwise your husband will get bored thus becoming uninterested in you.  Oh, also please shave, pluck your eyebrows and torture yourself with wax all in the effort to keep his attention. 

Let’s not forget work.  No longer is it okay that you’re the caretaker of the house and hearth.  Oh no, now you, little one, must pull on a pair of dress pants and head off to work, fighting traffic and dealing with the same issues that any man anywhere deal with (while of course not being paid as much).  You will be expected to excel at whatever your chosen profession is and bring home the ‘bacon’.  If you want to give it up and stay home, guess what, you probably can’t because by then you’re used to the extra ‘bacon’ (alright for my Muslim counterparts ‘halal bacon’). 

However, unlike a lot of married men who come home to a plate of hot food, you’re most likely not doing that, are you?  No, instead you’re entering your house to a bunch of hungry ravenous folks staring at you with anticipation.  Even if all you want to do is sit your butt down on the sofa and lapse into a vegetative state, you can’t, Buttercup, so suck it up.  Instead you spend the next hour or so creating something consumable as you try not to fall asleep at the stove or burst into hysterical sobs.  After which there’s still a lot to do like dishes, cleaning up the kitchen, gathering and putting (rather actually wrangling) the kiddies to bed, laying out clothes for the next day after making sure everyone else’s stuff is good to go and finally going to bed yourself.  

Wait, did little Joey/Krishna/Ahmed/Ireen/Mary/Maya/Shanequa/Jerome/Axel/Rose get his/her homework done??  Crap! 

In-between all this, you have to deal with any personal issues (like the ones I spoke of in the beginning of the blog) which saps your strength and makes you want to just give up. 

These are all the things that zipped through my brain while having the convo with my friend.  It’s a lot, right?  Yup.  Damn skippy.

But let me reiterate (one more time) that I fully recognize that men have their own situations to deal with.  Yes, plenty of you are single fathers or share the burden of the household with your spouse or in some cases the only sole income.  You too come home to cook dinner (no, not just pick up KFC or order Domino’s…this is not considered cooking, in case you were wondering) and you too have to mentally prepare yourself to be rejected by the woman you want.   I know you suffer from identity crisis as well as self-image issues.  However the difference is that you have this bizarre ability to bounce back a bit easier.  You don’t have a whole host of hormones that invade your body once a month for a week that takes all your insecurities, unhappiness, niggling doubts and magnifies them by a bazillion.  You don’t recall every horrible, terrible, mean, or even some ‘well meaning’ comment thrown at you.  You don’t agonize over what it all means or why someone said something.   

I also know that most of what I’ve said through this blog doesn’t apply to everyone.  I’m not that nearsighted nor do I like to generalize, I don’t have a gigantic paintbrush in which I go around painting the world.  I believe I’m a fairly level-headed individual who can very easily play devil’s advocate and for the most part am non-hypocritical (notice how I said ‘for the most part’…I too am human).  But I also think that I’m right in this, for the most part. 

Anyhow, I think y’all should be thankful that I went only this far and didn’t add the joys of pregnancy to the list of things women have to deal with (seeing as how I’ve never been knocked up, I can’t really speak to it accurately but having known plenty of women who are little breeding machines, I sort of get the gist and think I can make some sort of commentary regarding it).  If I had spoken at length about that particular biological joy, all the other stuff I wrote and any arguments against my point would have been trumped in one fell swoop.

Booya!

Argument totally won (or lost, depending on your gender, I suppose).

Okay, I'm exhausted.  I thought of more and more things that I could write as I proofed but became woozy. Besides it's late and I have work tomorrow.  Y'all sleep well and for you men out there, hug the next female you come across and thank her for all she has gone through for you and what she's probably still going through.  Um...wait, don't go hugging a stranger.  That may land you in jail.

Have a good night.