The Bigger Picture:International Women's Day just passed last Thursday, and Mother's Day is due to arrive on Sunday. Seems like a good time to share with you my thoughts and feelings about women. And, they are simple: I love women.
I love women. I do. This is not to say that I don't love men. Indeed, I love them also. The fact is, we are not born a man or woman.
These are just gender roles that carry certain meanings for us in our society, and so result in us being treated differently, having different experiences and developing different perspectives.
Every human being is a beautiful, attractive, inspiring and loving individual. I am delighted with both the men and women in my life.
At this moment in time, however, I want to focus my attention on women: what goes on for us, our strengths and struggles, and the support we need. In doing so, I will necessarily also be thinking about men, and if I don't give proper attention to men and their situation in this article, I promise I will in the near future.
What I love most about women is the way we think and feel about other people.
(Note now that this is an article about broad trends and common experience, so don't be furiously writing in to me if you feel it is unfair for me to speak generally. As much as there is a truth in our specific experiences, there is also one in our mass experiences.)
I love the way women regularly think about a great number of people, in terms of what is going on for them and what their needs might be, and continuously trying to organise some way by which those needs might be met. For this, I think women deserve acknowledgement and celebration.
It is a big job, and we do it as a matter of course, just because it needs to be done.
Ironically, it is for this characteristic - of thinking about so many other people all the time - that women are often criticised. The criticism comes like this: we women don't take enough time for ourselves, we don't care enough for ourselves, and we interfere with the lives of others.
We are nags, burdens on others and lacking self-esteem. And so, the fact that we are often able to put the needs and wishes of others first - and that we often do this to the cost of our own health and wellbeing - is presented back to us as a flaw, a weakness and, more so, something destructive to others.
This, I think, is not fair and missing the bigger picture (if you will).
It is true, I wish women would feel they could prioritise themselves more in their lives. There is nothing I want more for women than for us to feel valuable in our own right, and as equally important as others. However, the fact is that we have received this message, and experienced the consequences of it, right through our lives. We weren't the first ones to tell ourselves this. And so, I see nothing useful in getting angry with women for having internalised it. In fact, I am sure that's not helpful.
What I want to say, and I want to say it loudly, is that I think this element arises more from something that has not been damaged, rather than something that is weak. It more closely resembles a rational way of acting towards humanity than the alternative - individual isolation.
In short, it is a very human thing to do to think about and actively love others, and if everyone took on more of this "struggle", the world would function much better than it does right now.
The problem is that things have gone wrong for women so that we work ourselves out of the equation. What's worse, those around us who love us, do the same. The way it works inside a woman's head, I think, is to say to ourselves: "It doesn't look like anyone else here is noticing or providing the love that people need. Maybe, if I provide it for others and get everyone else into better shape, someone will notice and give me a hand later." The problem is that second piece rarely happens.
There is another irony. Even if the world is on its knees, as long as others aren't allowed to care for themselves, they can never be truly empowered. When we take responsibility for others, we (unintentionally) take away their opportunity to be responsible for themselves. This is disempowering.
And so, no matter how much love we give them, they do not move through to functioning at a level which means that they can also be helpful in offering love back to us.
It is a characteristic of humanity to think about each other, go out of our way to love each other, and to connect deeply with each other. This is part of the essence of humanity, and every human being is more powerful when they access this.
Just as I want it for men, I want women to start going after their own lives, to stop being so hard on women and each other, and start fixing the real problems: an economy driven by the exploitation of resources, and taking humanity as its casualty.
In this project, I think women truly deserve a celebration.
Shalini Sinha is a life coach and Bowen practitioner in her clinic, Forward Movement.