Women *exasperated sigh*

There is a trend with urban women these days. The need to portray themselves as independent, strong willed, stone hearted, career driven individuals. Listening to this banter and reading this on the internet makes my ear and eyes respectively bleed.  Let me assure you that I am not a woman stuck in the 80s. See me walking on the road and I will definitely come across as a woman of today. You may very easily confuse me with the people I am talking about here, but I am not one of them. Anyway, getting back to what pisses me off SO badly,  here are the points.

1.       The “I will not learn to cook” crowd : The “independent” women of today believe that by learning to cook, and by cooking for their family (own or in laws), they are putting themselves down. HOW is that degrading? You buy them clothes out of your first salary to make them happy, but you refuse to cook a meal!? I don’t have a problem with those who do not like to cook. To each her own. But to be determined NOT to do this, simply because in your twisted mind that shows submission, its madness. Secondly, you spend so much time developing your “soft skills”, why not consider this as one of them?

2.       The “I am a career woman” crowd : You studied well, you have a great job! Alrighty then!! Good for you! I am going to respect the knowledge you have gathered and the position you hold. But the moment you start making the whole “all woman should take care of their careers first, forget everything” talks, I am going to lose every ounce of respect for you. You chose to give up things along the way to become who you are today. Sacrifices always have to be made, and you probably liked making those sacrifices. That was YOUR choice. It needn’t be mine. If I choose to quit my job and stay at home and wait every evening for the love of my life to return, it’s MY choice. I do not automatically become a suppressed person. In fact, that is how I exercise my independence.

3.       The “We don’t need men” crowd : Men are mean, men as asses, men create all the problems, they ruin everything. All you status updates, pins, tweets are about this very thing. Why? Are you that insecure of your femininity that you find it necessary to criticize the other sex? Or have you never been to high school where the girls kill you with their gossiping, razor sharp tongues? Let’s be frank here, when a girl walks past, the men mostly think/say things like “sexy girl”, “great ass”, “maybe I should ask her out”, “wonder if her lipgloss is tasty” and get over it, but we women? The things we say are always mean. “Did you see what she is wearing? *mocking tone* didn’t she look at a mirror” “Her skirt is so short, how slutty” “God, she looks like a bitch”. We women have no right to talk about camaraderie.

This post is about women like me who live in the cities and are financially independent and equipped with knowledge. We don’t need empowerment, we are pretty damn empowered. But maybe we aren’t as independent as we seem. We still haven’t let go of the peer pressure mentality. When a man tells us to do or not to do something, our first instinct is to oppose it, simply because we have been taught, by other similar minded people that men are the natural “enemies”. Yet, when we go out with a guy and if he doesn’t foot the bill, we call him a cheapo. We talk of equal rights, and yet expect to be allowed to jump queues because we are women. When it is a man in question, we never see him as brother, best friend or loved one.  There are many things that we would do for a girl friend, but if it is a guy, by fulfilling his request, women somehow feel like they are submitting to him. The worst part is that girls who love the men in their life, who choose to be feminine, who want to get married and take a partner into her life at an early age are being called soft, silly or weak hearted. You refuse to face the fact that they seem to be able to decide what they want and go about with it as they like. If you feel the need to oppose your suppression without anyone suppressing you, it’s probably in your head, and you are probably not as strong headed as you think.