Saturday, October 21, 2006

It’s Tough Being A Woman

I’m not sure if men will agree, or women for that matter, but I really think it must be very hard being a woman. Of course I love women and the final product (already I’m pissing off the feminists) is wonderful, but being a woman itself is a lot of work. I mean women are in a tough spot from birth. Even though it’s better now, I can’t imagine how women lived a long time ago.. deprived of any education, they had to claw their way into the world. They had to deal with far more educated men and conquer them. They had to bear abuse and they had to bear shame.

Even today, when a woman is born, especially in the Middle East, she brings less joy to her family (not to me but to some others), she is surrounded by a fence of rules that she should not dare to cross. She’s not expected to play sports, she’s expected to act in a certain manner, she’s not even expected to hear cuss words and she’s expected to be home at a certain time. The community has built a cage around her that imprisons her even with her constitutional freedom. I don’t know if women see that, but I do.. and I don’t know what I’d do as a woman. I would rather be a woman with a bad reputation than be locked in such a case.

Like I said I think it’s very tough to be a woman, and men don’t give them a break. They just ask more and more and women bear more and more. They demand so much more of women and yet almost everywhere they call themselves the superior race. I’m not a feminist out to defend women or say that they’re superior, I just understand what they go through. It’s such a horrible quality to be able to put yourself in one’s shoes, it always causes me trouble .. This is the trouble I’m talking about, as a man, I’m very happy, rebellious against my own society and it’s easy for me to retaliate. Women have much more calculations and I don’t know if I would have been able to rebel had I been a woman.

Where do women get all their strength, with all odds against them.. with child labor, responsibilities and pressures by men. I really don’t know and that’s why I’m impressed with strong women. I’m impressed with how they fought all that was naturally against them and have risen to fight those battles that I do. I think it’s very difficult not to admire women. I also can see how to sympathize with them, but the trouble is that I don’t sympathize much with those who do not choose to help themselves.

Women are about sacrifice, even those who don’t. They always sacrifice something because they’re born at a social disadvantage. I know that there’s this talk of equality, but I’m saying that they’re born at a disadvantage. There’s equality of opportunity but not equality of people. If they were so equal, why didn’t women take over the world? I think it’s very concerning whenever I see an evil woman. Not that women can’t be evil, they can be and very much so in fact, but I mean the idea of a woman has been tampered with so much in my head that she needs to be kind, loving and obedient. Now I’m thankful that this is not how I view women really.. but it’s due to that damn trait of putting myself in their shoes.

Women need to be seductive; they need to watch their weight and what they eat. They need to wax and put on make up and just basically invest so much time on how they look. To top it off it has been customary to see women as in charge of the household and cleanliness. She has to keep the house in great shape, do all the dirty work and yet maintain her feminine beautiful and sexy image. She must be everything it seems, do the tough jobs and yet remain graceful. Be responsible and yet submissive.

Another thing about women that I appreciate is their biological nature. I mean after they mature they have so much to maintain. And it’s not just that… women are normal 25 % of the time. In a cycle of four weeks, they’re normal for one week, they get their emotionally exhausting PMT for the next, then get their physically exhausting period for a week and then ovulate for a week. A woman has something out of the ordinary to deal with 3 weeks out of 4, so much so, that I’m not sure I can label any one week ‘normal’.

I don’t understand how men can just ignore this, I mean even the tough guys out there not just those with a feminine side. It’s really tough and to think that putting yourself in these shoes might be mushy is just pure cowardice I believe. I think courageous and tough men have to appreciate certain tough situations, and like I’ve been babbling all this time being a woman is theeeee ultimate tough situation.

How can one chromosome mean this world of difference? I really don’t know.. but I do know that it’s tough being a woman even with all those rights. Those women’s rights are there but they also put pressure on her. They’re a sort of freedom but a lot of women I know have less ambitious priorities by nature. I mean they can do certain jobs as good as men and some even better but a lot of them need the emotional side fulfilled too.
What started all this anyway? Well I was watching part of a show ‘Qasim Ameen’ and he was talking about giving women a right to education. I realized that we’re depriving women of all the tools they need to get ahead and that it must be very tough.. But on second thought, they’re doing very well without a lot of tools and getting ahead, imagine what would happen if we make all those tools available.. Lord have mercy on men..

10 comments:

Dee-Vine said...

you just won major points with that post.
i actually came across this a couple of days ago:
"Juggling a full-time job. Orchestrating monthly finances. Maintaining a clean (maybe even organized) home. Carving out a few precious minutes to sneak in time to shop for food at the impossible to find a parking spot grocery store. Playing the role of goddess, manager, mother, sibling, lover, significant other, best friend, healer, accountant, do-it-yourselfer, and shrink. And yet, society has the audacity to expect you to be beautiful too! "

anyway, like i said, MAJOR points.

Anonymous said...

:) i think you should know that many women, despite the disadvantages which are all very true and real, find it very rewarding being a woman.
I don't know why really, but there's something about the ability to be all that, that is very fulfilling.
Or maybe i'm just in denial :s

Wael Eskandar said...

dee-vine : I'm not tring to win points, but that's truly what went through my mind, but I'm also glad you approve :)

n : I agree that there's a plus to being a woman and with more challenges there are more accomplishments I suppose.. so I don't think it's really denial.

MechanicalCrowds said...

The thing is, If you undermine women you're gonna miss out on 50% of the population. That's 50% of your workforce.

I'm all for women's rights & equality.

Anonymous said...

Amazing post Will.
It's really great to find a man who apreciates women like you do.

There are many men who dont; especially in the middle east, where they think that a woman is thier slave, they married her so she can pamper him and agree to his every whim.

Men in the middle east are spoilt by thier mothers before marriage and by thier wives after marriage.

I have seen many woman, especially in egypt, who dont even know that she has the right to say NO boldly, or even fight for a simple a right like doing what she wants, whenever she desires.

It sure is dificult being a woman, but i wouldn't want to change a thing.
Im proud to be one, with all its advantages and disatvantages, and hey, i actually like being the weeker sex, i dont believe in equality, coz everything is already divided equally between men and women since the begining of creation -besides the advantage of bearing children of course- and that i see as a plus point, being the main caue of such a miracle is a miracle in itself.

I'm blabbing; but this post is inspirational!

Anonymous said...

I read this post from a western point of view, as I am as Dutch as people can be... ehm... your English is meticulous!
And as for the view on women, ehm, to me it is like reading a post my grandfather could have made in his local card club. I am not saying AT ALL that we are "more advanced" at all, since the position of women is still appalling here, with getting paid less, and getting less opportunities for high positions and all, but basically, the idea of women taking care of the household efficiently, being mentally unstable 3/4d of the time (think about it... men are a lot more ruled by horomones than women are, it is just so constant that it is misconceived as being "normal". I am talking about lust here, btw, no sense in denying it) it is highly outdated. Kudos for recognising the difficult position of women in your country though.
Remember though that the differences between men and women are highly exaggerated (mainly by culture) and that means that the traits where men and women differ are mainly overlapping bell curves: that means that generally the cross section of people that are similar to you contain an equal amount of either sex, and a lot of people of the opposite sex are more alike than people on the opposite end of the bell curve than you are.
Sorry for being so technical! (and that for a girl, huh??)

Wael Eskandar said...

Saskia: first of all, not sure if I should apologize for my English.

You say it's like reading your grandfather's post, and it may be because we really are stuck in the past over here, despite the idea of women being educated was first proposed in Egypt.

I'm not sure how lust affects men's moods, it impairs thinking perhaps but the mood in general isn't as chronically affected as women.

As for the differences between men and women, they are sculpted by our culture and that's why it's tough being a woman with all things imposed on and assigned to women. There are many similarities but the gap between men and women is very wide over here such that similarities between men and women are diminished.

So I'll take the whole grandfather thing as a compliment because it reflects how behind we are, but even when looking at the women everywhere else in the world, my post might be different, but I would still keep my original thought.. it's tough being a woman.

Cleopatrina said...

loool! will e i luved ur post.Its fasciating how u entered into a girls darkest zones and depicted it so freakin casually:) i luved ur style and thank u for puttin urself into a womans shoes ALAS
however, since God created the woman and the man, each endures different chores and is designed in a different technique compatible with their system.We dont have to be equal in terms of same jobs same roles in life etc..we just need to bear more understanding and compassion for one another and we'll be fine.
I liked ur post so much ill go read it again lool

Anonymous said...

the impression i got from reading that post was assuming that ur intentions was to role-play Mr. all-sensetive-caring-mushy-feminist who think the world is unfair to the poor female gender and u r doing all that for the purpose of begging attention/popularity among the girls. the truth is i could be wrong, there is always the chance that u r gay, hence all the tender crap

Wael Eskandar said...

Okay, so I'm assuming you're sitting on the computer with a beer belly, macho looks and superiority complex looking down upon people and giving a smart know it all comment.

The chances are you've got no ability to listen to any voice but your own and have no ability to put yourself in any other shoes but your own.

To top it all off, you lack the ability to read something objectively because your whole life is a subjective experience telling you who you should be and what you should think and you've been up to your elbows in that bullshit for so long that you're so brain washed that you try to pass on that bullshit as your own.

But what do I know, the only thing I know how to do is put myself in someone else's shoes, and with that instead of accusing you of being a chauvanist pig, and a typical stereotyped airhead, I will sympathyze with your abused mind.

So to answer your question in case you ever come back here and recognize there's a response to the idiocy you've just spewed, there's no tender stuff in this post.. there's just a thought, if you know what that is.. There's just the ability to see things from a different perspective, a different viewpoint that's not the way you've always looked at things.. the ability to think outside a box, but I guess that's why any thought that you can't think of seems gay or begging attention cause that must be the reasons you have for thinking.. and I have a life somewhere other than the internet where I have attention, so I don't need a post to beg for it.. But I understand how you would think about it.. good luck with a life ..