Being a woman is hard. Sure, skirts and saris are pretty cool to wear now and then, and nail polish smells nice, but an acknowledgment of our basic humanity from society at large would be nice too. To illustrate just how difficult it is to be a woman in a society that continuously reinforces the message that you are a lesser being, women face ten problems every day.
The lived experiences of women and the everyday issues we face show that, while #NotAllMen may contribute to the patriarchal aggression subjugating women, #YesAllWomen is left paying the price of the ones who do.
1) Live With the Constant Threat of Sexual Harassment
It is the spectre that haunts us. It is the fear of the very possible. It is the headlines of the newspaper every other day. It is a nice enough uncle who sits a little too close to us at the auto for us to feel comfortable. It is the sinister smile of our male coworkers at the workplace.
It is the anonymous messenger on Instagram telling us what they think of what part of our anatomy. It is one of the problems women face every day. And it is terrifying.
2) Being Victim Blamed
If sexual harassment and the continuous looming threat of it isn't enough, there is the rape culture that aids, and often pretends to counter it. The culture of slut-shaming and victim-blaming creates the problems women face every day. What it really does is place the onus of sexual harassment on the victim.
Women are told to wear clothing that is "decent" and not stay out beyond certain hours, because then they bring upon themselves the outrageous atrocities committed against them every second. The reality of sexual harassment, even rape, leads to an endless cycle of blaming the victim. The possibility of such harassment is an excuse to scare women into following a certain code of conduct that is considered proper.
3) Having an Undue Worth Attached to our Appearance
From every corner, billboards and magazine covers and television commercials remind us that there is a certain kind of beauty we must aspire to-we must shrink, we must be thin, but curvaceous enough to be attractive to men, we must have clear and fair skin, we must have straight hair today, smooth curls tomorrow. Among the plethora of problems women face every day, this is one.
The male gaze follows us, doggedly attaching itself to our every move. An inability to ignite male desire is a failure. Being desired is dangerous. If we care too much about our appearance, we are ridiculed. If we do not, we are disparaged.
It's our bodies that we are perpetually ashamed of, yet always seek to improve them in strict adherence to what men find appealing.
4) Being Labelled
We are uptight virgins, or we are sluts, we are prudes, or we are whores, nerds, or bimbos. The inability to exist free of arbitrary labels is among the problems women face every day.
It started with the Madonna and the Whore dichotomy, perhaps, a thousand dichotomies have been framed ever since. We, captured in the limited spaces between opposing binaries, willed to fit in the shallow-minded realities of society. We are damned if we try to fit in, and we are damned if we do not.
5) Being Stereotyped
The fiction of gender needs another construct to sustain it- that of gender roles. Gender roles hold us by the neck in the throttling grasp of the noose that is a generalized, stereotypical view on femininity. The patriarchy would say we are creatures with vaginas, capable of giving birth to children, who fall in love with men.
Along with it come more infuriating assumptions- we cannot drive, we are not that good at math and science, we like handbags and wearing our hair long.
6) Being Taken Less Seriously Than our Male Counterparts
Women are frequently infantilized and devalued. The simple disparaging we are subjected to by virtue of our gender is among the problems women face every day.
Men explain our lived experiences to us and exhibit an entitlement to our spaces and our labour, often erasing our entire identities. We are frequently overlooked and spoken over, seen simply as pretty faces- if you have that as your one redeeming feature.
7) Having Patriarchal Expectations Thrust Upon Us
Patriarchally demarcated gender roles see women more as role fulfillers than as individuals. It assigns to women certain duties that are really to do with upholding the very fabric of society. It also ensures that women fulfill these duties far more aggressively than it does with men.
Women are appointed to ensure that other women live up to the patriarchal expectations-fulfilling criterion of male desirability, planning on settling down and eventually starting a family. Remember those overzealous "you are next!" aunties at the last wedding you attended?
8) Being Relegated to the Position of a Second Class Citizen
Men are the norm; women are the other. We learned it early on while studying gendering in grammar and found that the feminized forms were derivatives of the male-centric original.
We learned it when our mothers looked after the kitchen and the home in addition to their jobs, while our fathers could look after their work alone without being questioned. We learned this when our mothers would never eat dinner before their husbands did.
We learned this through countless forms of popular media where women were portrayed merely in accordance with the relation they bore to men. We learned this most of all when as rhetoric in support of women's safety, it was cited that "She is someone's daughter, or wife, or sister" rather than "She is someone."
We have grown up accepting our positions as the secondary, and over time we almost got used to it.
9) Being Sexualised at Every Step, and Without our Consent
Our tenth-grade teachers told us to wear our skirts longer lest the boys notice, our mothers told us to keep our breasts decently concealed. Our bra straps are incitement; our knees are provocative, our barebacks are sluttish.
It is unthinkable for topless women to be viewed in any way but sexual, and shirtless men are acceptable for viewing by the general public. What is it about skin that ceases to be just skin when it belongs to a woman?
This constant sexualization of women, a problem women face every day, is coupled with a taboo surrounding female sexuality. A woman who embraces her sexuality is, however, despised for her supposed compromising of her morals.
10) Facing Repercussions for Speaking Out
Women are not weak. Women are tired, and women are angry. Women face a million problems every day, and women are sick of it. When we speak out, we are, however, feminazis at the very best.
Being ridiculed is the least we can get away with. If we are less fortunate, even the display of our rage is too unacceptable. We have fresher horrors awaiting us. Acid attacks, rape threats- women have seen it all.
Women are always dangerously close to the edge, a second away from toppling into the steady stream of horrors patriarchy has reserved just for us. It is not easy dealing with the problems women face every day and looking at the scenario today, it doesn't show the will to make the deal easier for women anytime soon.
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