Pressure keeps increasing and responsibilities and expectations of women keep increasing.
If you think about it the biological differences between men and women make woman naturally unhappier due to biological changes and hormonal fluctuations. Women used to carry the burden of child rearing and bearing along with home making since the beginning of time. Nowadays women are expected to be career oriented too or else they would be viewed as less than their working mom friends. Growing old has become a sign of defeat and inadequence, so along with fighting to keep her place in the office, and keeping her status as a mom and wife, she has to fight against the hands of time , because God forbid that she wakes up finding a wrinkle or that people see her grey hairs doubling by the minute.
In Egypt the moment a girl is born, her parents start worrying about her future marriage and praying for the day she wears a white dress. The boy however will be just fine on his own and his parents already resent the girl he will end up with. Some men still switch wives refusing to believe the baby's sex is determined by the father. Although many men have become open to the idea of fathering girls and accepting it, many others still think girls burden them with a fear of shame. Since a naughty girl will get pregnant, and a play boy will only be more experienced which is something that every girl wants and parents find pride in. This double standard is a cliche in the east however the case remains that the girl brings fear to her father and her mother will live to worry about her.
Boys however have it differently, parents want them exposed and street smart, and the older they get the more attractive they become. The signs of age only add charm to them and the silver hairs add nothing but glory to the crown of their heads. They do not even have to worry about losing their hair, what some men do not know is that some girls go crazy for the bold guy look.
For men it is a win-win situation, the messier they are, the sexier they are. The dirtier the beard the more attention they will be getting, and rolling out of bed all they need to do is throw anything on and they will be ready. They go to work and this is all they have to do, the rest of the universe is left to their mothers or wives, from food to house keeping to child bearing and rearing, they only have to deal with a professional job. They have all these pretty girls to look at and only if they are good boys they will not think of more. They can have a million affairs to tell about and it will only add to their prestige between their guy friends.
An Egyptian modern girl has to be smart, fun,educated, fashionable with two years of work experience, sexy yet virtuous , skinny yet healthy, religious yet secular and practical, fluent in two languages, all for being a house wife in the end. It is funny how some of the college girls got their diplomas just to impress their grooms to be, and it is tattooed on their foreheads that they are here to marry not learn. Studying at the American University in Cairo I could see all the good girls, the future wives sitting looking pretty, ready to be plucked for the alter, one after another, and the pride that the bride has is as if she won the the noble prize and her friends look up to her like a rising star. The boys usually want the girls who smoke their cigarettes in the bathroom and not publicly, they usually marry the girls they did not get too familiar with. Those with the curfews, and a frequent calling mother. The girls who say "mommy" in front of strangers when referring to their mother.
It is funny how all the guys I know call me to tell me find me a bride, when they have millions of girl friends, guys do not want to marry some one they know well, they want the protected good girl, and it does not make them monsters, it is just how they are now. Deeply Egyptian and traditional no matter how much they have travelled and how many Jessicas they fell in love with they want to end up with someone who agrees with their mother.
Egypt is like the U.S in the fifties, women are treated like second class citizens, only there to look pretty and be good girls, however they just got their freedom to join the work force. Everyone smokes cigarettes everywhere, and the public smoking girl just gained her freedom to puff and she feels like marlin monroe doing it. Everyone drinks like bootlegging has just become legal. Most common Egyptian men think treating their wives like doormats makes them more masculine. Girls talk with girls in gatherings and men discuss the stock market and macho macho issues. The word divorce is gasped to like it is a death situation.
Woman are becoming more unhappy and men are becoming more carefree, being a man is becoming more fun by the minute, just being natural and comfortable is enough. Now girls spend too much time and money on manicures and pedicures, on their degrees, on the help they need at home, on their shoes and so many details that they have to attend to just to look like every other girl. Between the gym, work, home, kids, and looking pretty, women have lost their smiles yet the Botox hides the facial signs of their frown.
Cleopatra carries the burden of her female sisters who are pressured to modernize yet keep their roots, excel in and outside of their homes, be supermodels and have the hearts of saints, and never grow old or gain an extra pound, know all that the western girl knows and have the traditions of her land engraved in her heart!
Cleopatra lost her smile and gave it to Marc Anthony as a birthday present and told him he can wear it forever and she will manage the multitasking without her lips altogether.
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