I spend a lot of time talking about men’s issues because they’re issues close to my heart and I think they’re under-represented in public consciousness. There’s always this assumption that society is run by men and for the benefit of men at women’s expense and that just doesn’t hold up when you put it under any scrutiny. Just look at things like suicide, homelessness, educational disadvantage, male genital mutilation, healthcare provision, criminal justice discrepancies etc etc.
However, I don’t think there is enough empathy and compassion in the world in general, it’s not just men that suffer, all human beings do and my intention has never been to flip the pendulum from one extreme to another.
Not a zero sum game
I have lots of women in my life whom I love very much and I see their suffering too. It doesn’t need to be a zero sum game, there is not a limited pie of empathy to be distributed, the size of our hearts is the only limit to the compassion we can give to people.
I don’t believe one sex is better than the other or even that one sex is uniquely “oppressed” or disadvantaged, perceived disadvantage is often more complex than a binary and paired with other advantages. We all share the human experience and actually have far more in common with our opposite sexed peers than we do with those that seek to divide us.
In this piece, I’m going to talk about the flipside of the coin, the ways in which biology and reality can impact women. I’m not going to be able to cover every possible experience and there may be things that you may disagree with and that’s ok, this is just from my own observation and from conversations with women. I’m also focusing on the experiences that are different to men, not the things that are actually the same.
Peer pressure
I can imagine it being difficult being a young girl, going through puberty and dealing with all the hormonal changes and body changes. There’s a lot of pressure on girls to look a certain way and to be with the in crowd. Other girls can be very cruel once they’ve decided to ex-communicate you from their clique.
In my childhood the pressure came from magazines full of photoshopped ladies with perfect bodies and TV. Girls were particularly vulnerable to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.
Social media made things worse
These days it’s even worse, it doesn’t just come from magazines but social media. Everyone posts these fake images of how wonderful their lives are and it can give young, impressionable people a feeling that their own lives are inadequate. When I see how obsessed young girls these days can be with selfies, how much time they take to capture that perfect image, it’s like a new kind of OCD.
The bullying doesn’t stop at the school gates anymore, it follows you into your home, into your bedroom and into your head, 24×7. I really do feel for young people today. Childhood is just getting shorter and shorter, with younger and younger girls worrying about body image.
The downside of sexual attraction
When a girls body starts to take the shape of a woman, she suddenly finds herself getting more attention from the opposite sex and that must be very disconcerting for them. Especially when the attention comes from much older men. I might not be deliberate, it might only be a glance here or there or it could be comments made by complete strangers.
Fear and vulnerability
Combine that with all the news headlines of cases where girls have been attacked, assaulted or raped. It’s only natural that they have a heightened sense of fear and vulnerability. After all, girls are typically shorter and less muscular. Even a below average strength man could easily overpower most girls.
The fact that the vast majority of men wouldn’t dream of doing something like that is no comfort when she doesn’t know whether that guy at the bus stop chatting to her when she’s on her own is one of the ones that would. The fear is still there and it’s real.
Too much, too soon
Biology is a cruel mistress. It gives women the peak of their fertile years at a time when they’re still very young and might not know what they want out of life. Men don’t have that same problem, although male fertility does decrease over time, there’s no hard cut off for men. People like Mick Jagger have continued to father children into their 70s.
Modern women pressures
The modern world tells women that they need to have a career, that being a mother isn’t as valuable so many women these days spending their peak fertile years pursuing a career and competing with men only to get to a point where they suddenly feel the desire to have a family but time is running out for that to be possible.
On the scrap heap
It must come as a terrible shock. When you’re young, you think you’re going to be young forever. You think that there’s plenty of time and then suddenly there isn’t and if you haven’t found that soul mate, that prince charming you were promised as a young child, that can be a very tough reality. Those kind of guys that were interested in you when you were younger, they’ve all paired up and the reality is that it’s much harder for you now.
At the same time, you’ve grown accustom to a certain standard of life. Why should you settle for less? You deserve a man that can maintain that level and provide for you so that you and your kids can have a good standard of living but the clock keeps ticking and there isn’t a queue of potential suitors, or at least, not the kind you want.
Traditional women’s experiences
What if you go the other way? What if you settle down young with a guy and you have children together? Suddenly your life has gone from being about you to being about this little bundle of joy. Everyone congratulates you and tells you how happy you should be but you feel completely out of your depth.
The guilt of motherhood
The baby is screaming but you don’t know what he or she wants, you suffer from terrible guilt and fear you’re a bad mother, you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing but this is your life now. Your partner, if you’re lucky enough that he’s stuck around, gets to go out to work and see people. Your only company most of the time is a toddler and it feels so lonely. You don’t get a single minute’s peace to yourself and you begin to resent your partner for not helping you more.
You love your child but you feel terrible guilt for some of those thoughts and feelings when the stress is getting to you.
Heartbreak
What if he ends up cheating on you and breaking your heart? You gave him everything, you gave him your best years and now you’re not enough for him. You don’t want to be a single mum but he’s walked out and you have to explain to friends and family that he’s walked out.
You’ve been busy changing nappies, wiping away tears and cooking meals but you’ve got no career. Who would want to employ you now? You need to compete with all the other single mums for jobs that fit around school time because paying for childminders is just too expensive and the jobs available are all low pay. You do what you can, you’re determined to set a good example for your kids and you work hard. You work hard at work then you come home and you work hard again, cleaning up after everyone, cooking food when you just want to curl up and go to sleep. You wonder how your life came to this, what did you do so wrong to make him leave but at the same time you wouldn’t want him back.
Dating
You’re lonely, you decide to look for a new relationship on dating apps but you’re constantly swiping left on odd balls that are only after one thing. Random men start sending you seedy messages or pictures of their genitalia and you just feel like giving up and feeling like you’re never going to find love again. Nobody wants a single mum and you have to worry about the motivations of those that do. It’s not just about you, you have to put your kids first.
Menopause
Then comes the change. For years you’ve cursed the period pains and the hormones that made you an unstable emotional wreck but now you would do anything to be young again and visible. The men stop looking. They don’t notice you anymore. Suddenly you’re an old lady, with hot flushes, migraines and wrinkles. Gravity has not been kind to your body. You try not to laugh too much in case it make you wet yourself.
Empty nest
Now the kids are older, they don’t need you so much anymore. They have their own lives, boyfriends, girlfriends, the tears and the tantrums. You worry about their safety. You wipe away the tears with the breakups but as time goes on they fly the nest and now you don’t feel needed anymore. Your kids were your identity, who are you if not a mother? The visits become less frequent. You spend more time alone and you know your best years are behind you.
Circle of life
It’s the circle of life. Even a life full of happy memories and joy is also filled with sadness, fear, loneliness and disappointment. It’s not a pick and mix, we can’t just choose the good bits and miss out the rest, they come bundled together, often simultaneously. Life is hard. The more we listen to each other, the more we try to understand rather than assume, the better a place we can make the world.
Rant Over 