Hi world. If you are new to my blog,welcome and if you are a frequent reader of The Promiscious Pen, namaste.
This post marks the first instalment of Because I Am Woman , a category that I felt compelled to include as I noticed some of my thoughts, especially the ones pertaining to females did not quite fit in with the other categories on my blog. I felt quite restricted and in need of a new outlet for my thoughts I created Because I am Woman. I really do hope you are engaged, as you are enlightened and more importantly I hope that my words evoke emotions within you.
And so it begins, my first Because I am Woman article.
I am a woman ( a fact I hope is rather obvious by now) but I hope to one day become a great woman. I know that you all nodding your heads to that statement because you all aspire to attain that level of greatness and whilst it is true that I am on this path to becoming the best woman I can possibly be, I feel as though males are not burdened with similar expectations. Something happened between Eve eating the forbidden fruit till now to make women feel that we have to attain this heightened level of greatness perhaps to compensate for our role in bringing about the fall of man. I am in now way suggesting that as women we shouldn’t attain such levels of greatness because it would contradict everything I have ever worked hard for, I just think that the burden of greatness should be similar for men. I think as humans we neglect the importance of having a great man. Everybody harps on about having a great woman or being a great woman to the point that we are loosing sight of how important having a great man is.
Society places this “burden of greatness” on the female gender which on the one hand has helped rear generations of outstanding women but on the other hand has failed to deposit this expectation on the men, which leads me to ask but where is the great man? We (and by we I mean women) are in such a haste to become better versions of ourselves and yet my worry is that men are not being told the same thing. We are conditioned to be great wives, great mothers, great lovers and great chefs but when the world is too busy ironing out our creases (so to speak) telling us how to conduct ourselves, how to cook, how to wear our hair, how much education is required etc for the man who will one day do right by us , who is policing the men? Where is their heightened level of greatness that they have to aspire to?
I remember when I was younger and the Nokia 3310 was the best phone around ( lool my age is definitely showing) , I would play the classic game Snakes. Before you started a new game, you had the option of choosing a particular level and the snake would go faster or slower according to the chosen level. I have made reference to Snakes because I feel as though men and women are playing the same game but the world has already set the level for women ahead of time and lowered the game requirements for men and this isn’t fair. Men can fall short until they are ready for marriage and even then their shortcomings are viewed in line with the expression “boys will be boys” but women are not given the same free-pass.
I will not stop aspiring to be the greatest version of me possible but all I ask is that this burden of greatness be bestowed upon men as well . Being a great man is just as important and let’s not lose sight of this. The mark of a great society is not how great its women are but how great its people are and so this unequal burden is wrong. Some of you will think my thoughts grossly incorrect and point to the fact that society still portrays men as heads of the homes as well as providers but I would argue that this image is being eroded. I do not agree with the erosion but I think I am far more aggrieved that society has placed such great expectations on the female populace but give men the freedom to choose how great they want to be.
Can’t we all just be great?
Love Cris x
P.S Please do leave comments and if you disagree with me that’s even better. Let’s keep the conversation going.