An Nisaa - I am Woman

"Everyone is working very hard because Hari Raya is just around the corner. The extra money will come in handy. But working hard is nothing new to me. After all, I am a woman" Picture by Humans of Malaya

Mek Yam posts and shares numerous amazing pictures everyday on her Facebook wall. Some are beautiful scenery from places all over the world, many are of adorable animals or plants, fruits and flowers of very rare species. Occasionally they are of unusual gadgets and foods. But I think, Mek Yam's favourite is photos of people, real people of all races and nationalities, tribes and communities. 

The caption above and Mek Yam's comment had struck a chord in my heart and tugged at it, even as I write this. The woman above may be one who enjoys doing what she does and working just to supplement the household income. But there are countless women out there who have to struggle everyday and work hard to bring food to the table, education for the children and shelter for the family. 

Many have to do this without their own transport, equipped with ill-health, lack of sleep, food and nutrition and worse of all, without a husband for support. Some are literally without a husband by status, death or divorce. But the saddest are those who do have a husband, but one that instead of providing for the wife and children, lives off her. Just like a parasite. And the worse of all, men who not only expect the woman to put food on the table, but tops it all off with physical, mental and emotional abuse.

Sometimes I wonder, how the woman gets herself into such a situation. It may have started out as love, pity and then blind submission. I have written about women who can't find it in them to love themselves in my post A Bedtime Story. Either the woman is too weak to refuse her husband's demands and allows herself to be her husband's punch bag, or she is so strong that she is willing to takeover the role the family's breadwinner. I believe, it is the latter.

One thing for sure, many, if not most women would do it for her children. This is where she generates her strength. I suppose this is why God chose the women to carry babies for nine months in their bellies and not the men. Because, as the woman in the picture aptly puts it, "...working hard is nothing new to me. After all, I am a woman".