The fairer sex, the weaker Sex!!

I have a obsessive compulsive disorder - of following the copy and jingles of TV commercials. As a kid I used to sing for an audience in my class, the now obliterated Cadbury's Dollops Ice cream commercial. "Say Lops" - it goes and ends up in a sexy male voice concluding "Don't just say ice cream - say Lops" LOL

Recently another jingle for Walmart caught my ear. A husky female voice sings


- How lovely to be a woman
The wait was well worth while
How lovely to wear mascara
And smile a woman's smile -

while the focus lies on women of all ages applying makeup and choosing from the brands at Walmart. Indeed, I realize!, that it is lovely to be a woman. To have endless options in dressing, accessorizing and making faces up while the males around us can at the most have options for their laptop bags, dress shoes that come in shades of brown and black and probably sunglasses and wrist watches. The fairer sex seems to have a royal treatment in this department - the getting dressed department. But as I sing the catchy tune of walmart commercial while stirring the streamed rice, I realised that being a woman is not always lovely, or about wearing mascara or even smiling - since being a woman can be a vulnerability that can be exploited. A pain than can be excruciating depending on what part of the world you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to have taken birth in.

Consider genocidal Darfur for instance, where rape is used as a weapon to terrorize women and entire communities. Sadly enough, no woman or girl is safe there, or some of the male dominated countries where women are more of wall flowers or door mats or meagre channels of having male heirs. Sadly enough, the instinct to look at women as objects to satiate sexual hunger is predominant in all cultures and countries. It is still unsafe for women to travel alone after a certain time of night, no matter where she lives. Women are looked down upon as sexual objects and not as human beings.Birth of girl children is mourned - All this in the current day and age, very very sadly.

As I ponder about how much fun a woman has shopping for shoes and handbags, I wonder how many women out there actually walk miles bare feet and lead lives without ever knowing that they could have their own handbags to carry their money. On one hand I see the four friends in Sex and the city, living empowered lives and looking for love and lust in the big Apple and on the other I read about sexually assaulted underage girls in Godforsaken places like Darfur. While I feel extremely fortunate and blessed to have the privilege to think my thoughts and live my life on my terms and not on the man's that I am married to, I feel the necessity to reach out and give something to the other human beings of my sex. Please make a difference - donate to educate a girl child at www.ashanet.org or to one of those UN relief camps in Sudan or just think of dropping off your outgrown wardrobe at a local abused woman shelter. Reach out and help and then putting on mascara or wearing stilettos becomes optional, since feeling good is the beginning of being beautiful.