The Wild World

Amid the chaos of daily life, many important decisions revolve around issues like "Water shortage," "Poor sanitation," "Corruption," and "Suspicion."

In one urban household in South Asia, the family is headed to the hospital. After hours of anxiety, sweat, heavy breathing, and hard work, they finally hear the words they've been waiting for: "It's a girl," the nurse says gently.

The father is overjoyed and shouts with delight. However, the nurse is slightly confused when he mutters, "Finally, after two boys!" Nonetheless, the infant girl is taken home, and society scrutinizes her features and complexion. Unfortunately, girls are often victims of this kind of scrutiny based on appearance, while boys are not graded on their looks.

Despite this, the mother and mother-in-law are used to this kind of attention and wear a short, constant smile. Life goes on.

As a child, this person had a different schedule from their older brothers when they started school. Family discussions were held about society's thoughts, and decisions were made accordingly. The person learned to accept curfews and time limits as they grew older, relieving their mom and family. Now a successful young adult, the person's neighbors admire them, but their family urges them to get married and preserve tradition. Eventually, the person agreed to matrimony after much coaxing from their emotional grandmother.

Promises that she can work after marriage go awry since responsibilities crop up. Egos never clashed since the women folks in her household never let them arise. She put her priorities on hold while lending out her delicate hands into the hustle bustle of cooking, cleaning and the daily chores that run a household.

Eventually, a baby is welcomed. This young lady is a mom. Unknowingly she is walking the same path that her mom did by putting restrictions on the growth of her baby girl even though she loves to coo along her drools and teehee's.

The same boundaries are set for her toddler as decisions are made for her upbringing. Life unintentionally was repeating its course, and this young lady is walking the same path as her mom did years ago. As a girl growing up, she compared her upbringing with her friends at that time, but when life threw her lemons, she preferred to make lemonade in the same style that her family used to make i.e. by adding a pinch of salt, sugar and some crushed and grounded cumin. Thus, today as a mom she preferred to adapt to the age-old tradition thus eliminating any possibility of endangering the life of her baby girl.

Life for all genders is similar to Solomon Grundy's poem, where there is birth, christening, and marriage, illness followed by death. But still, the challenges that life throws at each at every step of the way make an individual cautious, scared, and vigilant. Some dare to be adventurous and gamble on the if's and but's that life throws at them, while most of them want to follow the path their elders took, more so since the end product is foolproof since they are the living examples. No doubt times are changing, and not all decisions can be dated to the eighteenth century.
Whether it is East or West part of the world, unfortunately, a woman is still considered a second-class gender thus, having to prove her mark in all aspects, be it her safety, security, freedom, and success, especially when she decides to quit baking cookies and step outside her home.

Lately, even the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, opened up.
"I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that's a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time, you don't want to seem 'walled off.'

As a woman, she had to work harder than her husband to reach that position.
Every year our planet rotates 365 times around the sun. However, sadly, the man's mind has yet to turn around as each girl is still trying to conform to survive and flourish in this wild world primarily governed by man and his massive production of testosterone that makes him macho and egocentric.

Should I add that the above challenges the fairer sex to ignite and continue to strive to touch the stars?