Men versus Women

Lately, some people have been inspiring me to write. They have read what they have been writing for the past few months. During our social gatherings, I have received feedback that I am writing predominantly about women, and some men in my surroundings have suggested I write about men, too. I told them I may not be qualified to write about men because I am unsure of their feelings and thoughts and unsure if I could do full justification.

However, that is not it. I write about women because I think there needs to be more awareness of how much a woman must endure just to live a simple life. All of the rights that we have today, such as the right to education, to own property, right to vote, and to have a job regardless of marital status and pregnancy, are just something we got after the 1960s. What we take for granted nowadays are the things a lot of women fought not too long ago and had to go through an uphill battle for many years.

A friend of mine sent me one meme on Instagram yesterday; we share funny memes most of the time. But yesterday he sent me a serious one. This meme describes the fights girls/women in our society still have to fight just to get the right to education. One of the girls has to shave her hair so that she does not have to get married and can go to school. The speaker in that meme says that Kafan (cloth that is used to cover a dead body is usually white; however, it also comes in red lehenga (bridal wear ) for some girls in our part of the world. That just broke my heart and has been bothering me since yesterday because I had seen many of those women, especially when I went to nursing school in the Eastern part of Nepal. We used to visit rural parts of eastern Nepal as a part of community education, where I would encounter these women. Some would have to die just because their parents could not give dowry. Some would come to the hospital with septic abortion and struggle between life and death simply because they could not access birth control and sometimes would end up losing their life. Some women would have to endure abuse just because they gave birth to a daughter instead of a son, which she has no control over because we do not possess chromosome Y. I have encountered a lot of women who have not been given any fundamental rights as human beings. These are just a few examples I have seen. There are many other examples in my mind. I get goosebumps writing these because I have to dive into my memories' dark spaces.

These are pretty evident biases women face and pretty outrageous and make your blood boil. People like me were born with more privilege, meaning in a good family, and my parents sent us to school, raised us in a stable household, and never discriminated against my brother or us girls. We have never endured such cruelty in life. In fact, I was favored in most of the instances. However, there is still subtle discrimination that I feel is mainly because of the societal pressure, not because my parents discriminate among their kids. They live with me, but I know they think it's awkward that they live with me. But if they lived with my brother, I know for a fact that they would not have the same feelings. 

So here comes the perspective of men in my family. I am unsure if I could justify the battles that men in our society have to go through. The most challenging struggle they have to endure is always being the provider in the family. To date, my father and my father-in-law, in their late 60s, are carrying the responsibility of the provider in the family, and they have been carrying this responsibility since they were in their teens. They can definitely retire and not carry the burden on their own shoulders but, they are conditioned to be the sole breadwinner in the family. So does my husband, who used to do two jobs with full-time college to provide for the family. This is true for almost all men I know. They cannot say no or take a break from this responsibility. It does not matter if you are qualified or well-equipped to provide, but if you do not provide for the family, you are not a good person, and society perceives you as a failure in life. In addition, men always have to be tough and cannot show vulnerability. That is an immense pressure to uphold your entire life. Sometimes, this manifests as bitterness and a toxic personality. 

Life is not perfect, but I am very fortunate to have a lot of progressive men in my life who have always helped me chase my dream of living a better life!