5 Things Men Need To Understand About Women

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman here are a few reasons why:

Having to be nice all the time.

It’s strange how men don’t have this problem. See, the absolute worst thing a woman can be is a bitch, and when you are a woman, ‘bitch’ just means ‘assertive’, or even sometimes just ‘not constantly apologizing for being alive’. When some vile saggy-pantsed bro loudly passes judgment on the fineness of your ass in the street and you fail to respond with a coyly flattered smile, you are a BITCH. When some bald-headed farty coot is sitting in the train seat you’ve reserved in advance online and you say ‘Could you move, please?’ without first raising your voice to a sugar-sweet, apologetically squeaky register, you are a BITCH. (True story.) When you basically do anything without first apologizing for doing it, you are a BITCH. BITCH BITCH BITCH.

Periods

Period are proof that nature hates women. There are some women out there (and I do not understand them) who go all earth-goddess about their periods, raving about the contents of their menstrual cups. (And sorry but menstrual cups are a horror that brings to mind medieval torture devices). The rest of us suffer in resigned silence one week out of each month, EVERY MONTH with agonizing cramps, constant cleanup duty, and the feeling of having been emotionally hijacked by an irrationally maudlin alter-ego. Oh, not to forget the clockwork breakouts which will take about another week to clear up. We also have to pay tax on tampons and so on, because they’re considered a ‘luxury’ item. Do men have to spend a percentage of their paycheck each month on expensive little bits of cotton to bleed on? No, they do not.

Pressure of Marriage/Family vs Career

How funny that guys don’t really have to worry about this?

Maybe it’s because they can produce healthy offspring well into their seventies and are considered hotter the older they get. We may have ‘cougars’ now but we don’t have ‘silver vixens’ and here’s why — because with women, fertility is really on a strict time limit. We’re born with a finite number of eggs which we begin losing at a rapid pace from the onset of menarche. There’s only a narrow window in which we can produce healthy babies with no complications or expensive medical intervention, but coincidentally, this window coincides with the window in which we’re supposed to be forging solid careers for ourselves. And god help you if you are a woman who chooses babies over a career, because you are a lazy, spoilt wastrel who has thrown away years of feminism. Oh, but also, if you do decide to have kids and go back to work, you are a cruel, evil, hardnosed bitch who has children just to ignore them while you focus selfishly on your career. I wonder why nobody ever makes a man choose between his career and having kids.

S-E-X

Men never have to worry about getting pregnant themselves — hooray for them! If you stop and think about it, the horror of an unwanted fetus potentially hijacking your womb despite making sure that all your fun is a multi-contraceptive experience (because no birth control is 100% effective) is like something out of one of those chest-bursting Alien movies.

The only way to be safe is to clamp your legs shut permanently and live like a nun. (Unless someone rapes you, in which case you will swiftly learn that it was ALL YOUR FAULT anyway). Due to the nature of our indoor plumbing, women are also much more susceptible than men to certain sexually-transmitted diseases. Oh, and there’s also the massive amounts of shame and stigma heaped on women who have sex versus the considerable amounts of shame and stigma heaped on women who don’t have sex. At least we’ve wrested back a certain amount of control with the invention of birth control, which in some countries is even FREE (thank you, NHS) but in many countries is expensive and difficult to obtain. And did you know that birth control has all these lovely side effects, such as blood clots, inexplicable weight gain, severe acne, and emotional imbalance?

Body Maintenance

Wasn’t it Hilary Clinton who said a woman’s second job is to look good doing her first job?

If so, she was right- women are expected to care about their appearance to a higher degree than men. There’s also just SO MUCH more women are expected to deal with- the socially mandated removal of absolutely all body hair means we just have so much more to shave than men do, resulting in higher incidences of ingrown hairs and itchy skin. We also have to do something about these bare-ass undecorated nails of ours, and forget going without makeup for even a day because people will ask you why you look so ill and tired. Sure, sometimes titivating can be loads of fun, but sometimes it’s just so much effort and isn’t life tiring enough?

On the other hand, there’s loads of stuff that’s awesome about being a woman, and loads of stuff that sucks about being a man, but perhaps someone else can write an article on those, because I’m tired from applying fifty pounds of makeup, being sickeningly nice to everyone and trying to get on with my career whilst my prime fertile years are slowly ebbing away.