Collection of Short Stories

3. The struggles of being born a Man.

          I am a man and I am not a jerk.

Being born with sisters before and after me, my life has always been a struggle.

I am Edw- oh wait, it doesn't matter! Today when I speak, I speak for all the men that have lost their voices and their identities- I speak for all those nameless and faceless humans who have been labelled as men (as if it were a profanity) and are treated like terrorists without any fault of theirs.

I get it that women are wronged. I get it that women have been suppressed and oppressed since time immemorial, but what I don't get is how that is every man's fault.

Are women only wronged by men? Are women treated like trash by men only? Are women denied their rights by men only? Are women withheld from what they deserve by men only?

Clearly not.

Before I start voicing myself, I would like to state that like any other sane human being, I too am a feminist.

For all those who have contorted the meaning of "feminism", please do sit and read this with an open mind before you have your moral gun pointed at me.

I support equal rights, equal treatment, equal resources and equal opportunities, but I acknowledge that there is a fine line between what a woman and a man have been engineered to accomplish.

Saying this, I will also point out that an individual shall decide what she/he is capable of achieving, and is not forced into doing something against her/his wishes only because that is what a "feminist" (in today's contorted version) is expected to do, since that is oppression too and is nothing different than what women are trying to free themselves from.

Sheila, about seven years older to me, has always been like another mother, and that is what she is really good at- being a mother.

At the age of twenty-three, she left home to get married to a good man, a successful investment banker.

Why she had to leave home and marry Sean without our parents' blessings, has always been a mystery to me. He is a virtuous man with a good social and economical holding and just the kind of man a woman's parents would want for her.

I thought I was dreaming when Shiela said that the reason why they didn't approve, was because they didn't want her to get married at that time, at all!

I thought this was ridiculous! Our parents always wanted my two sisters to be independent women and pillars of the society, and fight for women's rights. With all the discussions they have had since I can remember, they have always been told to follow their heart and not do something only because they are expected to do it.

At least that is what I had gathered.

What I failed to understand is, how denying someone the opportunity of doing something that they really want to do, is securing the rights that they are entitled to.

I am not an expert in this topic, since I am a man and apparently I can have no opinion on a "woman related" subject if I didn't have a vagina- that is how my mother described it.

Both my parents are very successful in their respective professional fields, but as parents- well,  that is a different story.

Amidst the fights about who's responsibility it is to nurture the children whom they both gave birth to, we were always on our own, unless it was time for them to teach us how important women are for the society.

And here I had been thinking, that good people are required to build a great society.

I remember when Sarah, only a year younger to me, had to go to a friend's fourth of July party, but none of the drivers were available that day.