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Being a man, I honestly have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. I don’t know the struggles or the benefits. I don’t know the reasons women get out of bed in the morning, or what keeps them moving throughout the day. I can’t even begin to imagine what goes through their mind when something happens to them.
Being a writer, I like to think I have a pretty observant mind. While I may not have ever walked in a woman’s shoes, I’ve seen women walk in their own shoes, and it doesn’t look easy. Being a woman means having more assumed of you, but less expected. Women will carry and deliver children, be in uncontrollable pain and bleed every month, and get paid less for working harder. And yet, we still say things like “throw like a girl.” We assume that women will do all of this work, and yet we expect them to fail.
Without even noticing, we treat women differently. Talk show hosts introduce male guests as “The talented _____,” and female guests as “The beautiful _____.” When a man tells you what to do, he’s displaying leadership skills, but if a woman tells you what to do, she’s being a bitch.
I’ve watched my fiancée go from a grocery store cashier to the Deputy Program Manager of Notify NYC, a one-of-a-kind program in one of the biggest cities in the world. She didn’t get to where she is because of any predetermined factors. She got there in spite of predetermined factors. She got there despite the men in the industry that didn’t take her seriously. She got there despite society’s expectations. Basically, she, and every other woman in the world, is a badass.
The average woman doesn’t fight crime. She doesn’t fight evil villains. Instead, she fights paradigms. And unlike the bad guys in the movies, paradigms don’t go down after a few hits. She has to keep fighting for most of, if not her entire life. She has to keep standing. She has to keep pushing. It’s an uphill battle, and you’re going up that hill in high heels (or whatever other shoes you want to wear).
So, ladies, on behalf of men everywhere, just tell us to fuck off and keep doing your thing.