Tag: women

Woman’s day, Woman’s week – we celebrated by sharing pictures, sending uplifting messages on WA and FB to each other and just enjoyed the glory of being ourselves.  One of the stream of messages on WA caught my attention, it talked about the other side of womanhood. It talked about how “we the women” are frenemies. Yes you read it right, we are our own friends and enemies.

For  a few minutes let’s keep all the Lean In feminism on the side and think about this. When we see a mom – with a stellar career choosing to move on with her career and not coming to field trips in school, we the super cool moms who attend the field trips are the first ones to comment on how Ms. Busy Bee never has time. “We the women” never complaint about dads not coming or being a part of it, “we the women” just accept that no matter how busy a mom is, she has to find time. “We the women” grunt at the mom, who sends her kid to school with unbrushed hair, “we the women” snicker at the friend who writes post after post of how amazing her life is.  “We the women” look at others and wonder about The Dress Up Game (http://www.shilpaverma.com/the-dress-up-game/) The bottom line is “we the women” have an inherent trait of jealousy in us.  Guys don’t have that. You can argue they do, and maybe you are right. But the woman jealousy factor is 100 times more potent. Guys are competitive and may choose to take a short cut to succeed in their career, but they don’t have time or the patience to gossip about another guy who is doing better than that. We the women do. We love gossips. And just to be clear, the WE in “we the women” includes me too. 

All the women gossip , MIL, jealous wife jokes exist for  reason. They are fictitious but stem from reality.

India – a country close to my heart is slaved to domestic help. If the maid calls in sick, the whole family grunts and grinds. On woman’s day – how many of “we the women” choose to give that maid a day off as a mark of respect to her womanhood. “We the women” pampered ourselves in salons and gatherings, all in while we had another woman cleaning up our mess.   

Why am I venting out? Simply because I wish for “we the women” to stop comparing ourselves to ourselves. Stop judging me based on what I do. Stop being unhappy with your life because you think mine is perfect. Guess what, mine is not. I have my battles too. I fight them everyday with my internal strength and a prayer and somewhere in between I try to smile too.  You should do the same. Life did not promise us a bed of roses, but it does have this unique way of preparing us for the future. So next time, please don’t judge me based on my clothes, or how I look or what I do with my life. My life is mine and yours is yours. Why oh why do “we the women” judge. Let’s just be and let us be.  

Let it be “Us the Women,” ‘cos both you and I know that this journey called womanhood would be impossible without girlfriends.