Being The Woman

By Archisha Paul

Being a woman is tough, every minute, every moment of your life from birth to death, you are criticised and observed. Burdened with endless expectations to be a good wife, a good daughter and now a good worker. We as a collective gender have a mindset of restricting ourselves within a box of perfection. Scared of every decision we make, timid to show our failures because we believe that at the smallest crack of our armour, we will be humiliated, hurt or rejected. Thus, we forget to be the powerful creatures we are.

Recalling a recent interaction I had, I was told that though we as women wear many masks to hide within, it is not that difficult for a man to break our code, if he is really looking. We are not really scared of being seen, it is rather the opposite, we love being seen. However, it is the judgement that comes with that revelation that scares us into hiding. We fear that if we seem shy, a man will look at our shyness and maybe see a person who is not willing to put out for some casual fun, therefore putting us in a category of unapproachable. This happens without the realisation that maybe we at that moment of our lives just wanna have some fun, or for lack of putting it in a better way, just wanna gain some experience.

On the flip side, A man may look and see a woman as more approachable for his weekly intentions if she has the confidence to not care how she is looking to others but maybe her experience scares him. He fears that because she knows so much he might not be able to bring anything new to the table for her. He is not wrong here, but does that mean she is a bad candidate for dating because she knows more than an average man or is he simply scared that in the real world, she may be in a higher position? Is he insecure that instead of him showing her the new things maybe she can show him more?

However, I am not saying that every shy girl has a hidden agenda or that every confident one has a desperation for love. I understand that sometimes for men, it becomes a necessity to be, what society says, a man. They feel inadequate if they can’t give us what everyone expects them to give when actually they might need it more. We can’t expect them to love the way we love, just like they can’t expect us to mould into whatever shape they want at their whim.

In the dating world, they have tried and tested methods which they tend to stick to. You see what we don’t realise or rather choose to oversee is that they live in dangerous times just like us. They are as prone to be humiliated and hurt as us, so when they enter fields where they can afford safety, they choose that.

My point is that being a woman is tough, because many times we have to sacrifice our powerful version to make a man secure, but being a man is not a cakewalk either because they too have to sacrifice being secure for our strength.

Till the world becomes more tolerable to the chinks in our armours at least. -

By Archisha Paul