nobody's perfect

It must be really hard being a woman. Like cosmic hard. Knowing you're the weaker sex not because you're really weaker but because of how strength has come to be defined. Knowing that for the rest of your life you'll always have to work that much harder just to get what others get in their sleep - because they're the ones handing out the awards. Having to grow up in a world that's basically an old boys' club with no old girls' club to take you in. Spending your whole life replacing every reference you can find of 'weaker' in 'weaker sex' with 'fairer', but knowing in your heart that it's really just a euphemism. Living in a world that considers exceeding mankind's former abilities extraordinary for men; but merely matching man the glass ceiling for you, the woman. Listening to everything around you, including other women, tell you where your place is, and how it wasn't kosher to try and rise above it. First having to defend your right to even be present before you can start agitating to be heard.

Having a personality that you take pride in, but that you have to watch recede; sometimes for the rest of your life. Having to watch it recede just so you can enable the dreams of another. Having to have your validation come from his. Going back home everyday to a man that agrees with society on how much success is too much for you; wanting you behind him always, to say yes to his whims and I'm sorry to his disappointments. Having to make yourself smaller so that he may shine. Submitting in every way he needs you to, and in so doing killing who you were and becoming a component of the man. The man you gave your heart to. Literally.

When I was growing up, I always saw myself as the kind of man that would pay mind to this plight. I always thought I would realise how equal we were, in that our different strengths were meant to be complementary to each other. I thought that when presented with the chance, I would cede control to the both of us rather than wield it as I had seen others before me. I was proud of the image of me I had in my mind. My idea of power then was always one of balance. Passing it on to those who may be able to apply it better than yourself. Doing so with nothing compelling you to other than it is the right thing to do.

That image has been shattered. I've been walking down memory recently. Thinking about how I've treated the women in my life. I have received some valuable insight as to what it must take to commit crime. All you have to do is believe in your heart that it isn't wrong. I was mean to them. I belittled them. I berated their intelligence. I uttered, and not once, phrases like, "You will learn your place." I did do some good things for them, but as it turns out, they weren't enough for the cost, which was their self worth. I treated them like they should be beholden to me for just being with them. I treated them like the world treats women - second rate. Only deserving of second place. To be seen and not heard. The one thing I thought I had actively avoided (by reading and re-reading copies of Lean In et al), I had become. It's interesting, isn't it, how you can be one thing to yourself and the complete opposite in reality and not even know it. Bad people must really believe they're changing the world. They must not know they're breaking it. Otherwise why would they?

The first step towards recovery is admitting there's a problem.

So, "Hi. My name is Colin, and I'm a male chauvinist."

END