Superwoman

The role of the woman in the society...if I had a penny for every time I heard that sentence, I would be a millionaire by now. I don’t know how many times as a young woman, I have had to listen to what is expected of me by my family, friends, teachers, neighbors…society. Everybody wants something from me and I cannot let them down. My parents expect me to be a good daughter, help at home, clean, cook, look after my siblings, my teachers expect me to be a good “girl student”, neat, courteous, respectful. My neighbors expect me to greet them every morning and cook a dish as well when they are sick. My friends expect me to always call, be nice, play the good girl, the one every parent loves to have as their daughter’s friend. The list goes on and on…do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that.

As a young girl, I was always overwhelmed with the feeling that no matter what I do, it would never be enough. No matter how hard I tried to make the perfect eba, it would always be too soft or too hard. I have never mastered that skill and to say the truth, at the age of nineteen, I decided that I would never accomplish the simple task of making the perfect eba. The perfect eba did not exist just as the perfect woman has never existed. I remember watching a certain neighbor as a young girl. This woman always seemed so well put together. Her hair always looked as if she just washed and set it, her clothes were always the latest fashion and her car was the sleekest. She threw the most amazing birthday parties for her kids and everybody in the neighborhood thought she was the “perfect wife”. I did too, until the day I realized that that beautiful crown of hair was….a wig. The perfect wife was practically bald underneath all that hair. I know what you are thinking, so what if she was bald? After all, majority of women these days will not be caught dead without their weave-ons and “attachments”. Well, it was remarkable to me because I never thought even for a moment, that she could not be perfect but that was not the main reason for that story. Rumour has it, that her husband on coming home early from work one day caught her asleep on the sofa, without her wig on. They say he screamed “blood of Jesus” and ran out of the house. I do not know if it was the shame of his wife not being the “perfect woman” but they got divorced soon after we never saw her again. I would have loved to convince my dear readers that “hair” could not be the reason for the divorce but unfortunately, considering the shallow world we all live in, it is my firm belief that her missing “crown of glory” was the cause of the demise of a once “perfect marriage”.

A good friend of mine phoned me the other day. She is a mother with two kids and works full time at a bank. She can often be seen at a salon during her breaks from work, her clothes are of the latest fashion and her kids always look so squeaky clean. She is the best cook in the world and her friends and husband will attest to that. My friend’s phone call was shocking to say the least. Apparently, her darling husband, who she had spent so much time and energy being super woman to, had been caught having an affair with another woman. His reason being of course, that my friend never had “time” for him. I guess my super friend was not that super after all.

So what am I trying to say, you may ask? Well, the simple truth is that we cannot do it all. Men will expect us to, but we just can’t. We are not super women.

waffywaffarian@yahoo.com