Practically every week I receive an email from a woman telling me to take comfort, women are wonderful. Not only are we wonderful we are better than men, endure more and work harder.
I don’t know whether I have lost my sense of humour but isn’t this sexist? Why do we feel the need to persistently advertise our suffering, our durability and our intelligence? Me thinks we do protest too much.
During my life as an ‘IT person’, which started late at the age of about 32, 20 years ago, I have seen only one email aimed at and defending men. I found it horribly irritating, defending the toilet seat habit and so on, but men, well my man any way, reads these female, very insulting emails and chuckles tolerantly. He knows, as I do, that the words say more about women than they realise. They tell men that yes, we are crabby, yes we do moan about everything life throws at us and yes, we are stupid to spend our lives trying to do things that don’t even need to be done. Take this email for example, my comments are in italics:
Why Women are Crabby
We started to ” bud” in our blouses at 9 or 10 years old only to find that anything that came in contact with those tender, blooming buds hurt so bad it brought us to tears. So came the ridiculously uncomfortable training bra contraption that the boys in school would snap until we had calluses on our backs.(I’ve never had testicles but I believe this goes on for a lot longer with them – like a lifetime, the pain I mean, not the elastic. But I imagine a wedgie might be pretty uncomfortable for a boy)
Next, we started our periods in our early to mid-teens (or sooner). Along with those budding boobs, we bloated, we cramped, we got the hormone crankies, had to wear little mattresses between our legs or insert tubular, packed cotton rods in places we didn’t even know we had.(Well, yes but aren’t you exaggerating just a bit. And why fight what you can’t change?)
Our next little rite of passage (premarital or not (Is this relevant?)) was having sex for the first time which was about as much fun as having a ramrod push your uterus through your nostrils (IF he did it right and didn’t end up with his little cart before his horse), leaving us to wonder what all the fuss was about. (OK, so it was all his fault was it? You never consented, wondered, shared in the experience? And anyway, how was it for him?)
Then it was off to Motherhood where we learned to live on dry crackers and water for a few months so we didn’t spend the entire day leaning over Brother John. Of course, amazing creatures that we are (and we are) (Oh please!), we learned to live with the growing little angels inside us steadily kicking our innards night and day making us wonder if we were preparing to have Rosemary’s Baby. (Come on girl, admit it, you were the one who wanted kids weren’t you? Some women want kids so they can stop work – OH YES THEY DO! Some women have an uncontrollable urge to have kids and give up all their freedom and some even try to retain their individuality/career at the same time but most women want kids and they persuade their husbands it will be a good idea. Men, well they are pleased with the kids but kids, like housework, were your idea so you take responsibility. Men do work for a living and never pretended they could do more than that. We women are very quick to tell them that they can’t multitask. Could this be self fulfilling?!)
Our once flat bellies looked like we swallowed a watermelon whole and we pee’d our pants every time we sneezed. When the big moment arrived, the dam in our blessed Nether Regions invariably burst right in the middle of the mall and we had to waddle, with our big cartoon feet, moaning in pain all the way to the ER. (Of course your belly grows, you’re carrying your child, something to be proud of. As for the waters breaking; never happened to me. In fact I’ve only seen that in films. I did know of a girl who was so worried about being embarrassed that she carried a plastic carrier bag round with her to catch her waters if they ‘went’ at the supermarket!)
Then it was huff and puff and beg to die while the OB says, “Please stop screaming, Mrs. Hearmeroar. Calm down and push. Just one more good push (more like 10),” warranting a strong, well-deserved impulse to punch the %*#!* (and hubby) square in the nose for making us cram a wiggling, mushroom-headed 10lb bowling ball through a keyhole. (OK I agree, nature was a bit remiss on the pain barrier thing but it can’t have been that bad or you wouldn’t have had another one!)
After that, it was time to raise those angels only to find that when all that “cute” has worn off, the beautiful little darlings have morphed into walking, jabbering, wet, gooey, snot-blowing, life-sucking little poop machines. (Come on, please, you love them don’t you?)
Then came their “Teen Years.” Need I say more? (You need to love them at this point! – see my previous blog on The Teenager.)
When the kids are almost grown, we women hit our voracious sexual prime in our early 40’s – while hubby had his somewhere around his 18th birthday(You think he doesn’t appreciate your sexual hunger when he’s 40? You don’t know much about men! Any way, he can keep going longer now!).
So we progress into the grand finale: “The Menopause,” the Grandmother of all womanhood. It’s either take HRT and chance cancer in those now seasoned “buds” or the aforementioned Nether Regions, or, sweat like a hog in July, wash your sheets and pillowcases daily and bite the head off anything that moves (Yes, it’s hot (I can testify to this), yes your brain gets addled; that’s why women should stay at home and enjoy life, not work their bloody socks off for everyone else. It’s how they are designed. Don’t blame men, please just SHUT UP and make the most of it).
Now, you ask WHY women seem to be more spiteful than men, when men get off so easy, INCLUDING the icing on life’s cake: Being able to pee in the woods without soaking their socks… (Get a shewee)
So, while I love being a woman, “Womanhood” would make the Great Gandhi a tad crabby. Women are the “weaker sex”? Yeah right. Bite me. (Bite yourself, see if you’re alive then get on with it.)
Send this to seven bright women you know and make their day!!! Or at least make them laugh a little…..(Bright women, they’re the ones trying to juggle too many balls in the air aren’t they? I suppose it might make them feel better about their life decisions but they won’t get this email from me.)