Man! I feel like a woman.

If you’ve been keeping up regularly with these little brain splurges, then you may well remember that as a feministy- and generally femaley-type human being, I was a bit concerned about how I was cope with the whole situation. Well, here is an update on those thoughts.

                We’ve all heard about the staring and I’m sure you’re aware of the usual tips: cover up, fake wedding ring, dark glasses etc. I’m going to put this very simply: there is no stopping it, you just have to filter it out and try not to let it bother you. What is more difficult to deal with, however, is people flinging their baby/ grandma/ next-door-neighbour’s cousin’s goat at you and insisting on taking a photo, without so much as a ‘do you mind?’ or even asking your name. But actually I don’t think this is a gender issue so much as a racial one. The two boys I’m with have the same problem and, in general, people don’t care which of them they have a photo with, provided they can just permanently record the spectral glow of our luminescent skin (trust me – we even seem to glow in the dark). My question is what do these people do with these photos? Do they go running home desperate to show their family this mysterious white being they encountered in the street? According to Samvit, we’re now their girl/friends – seems a tad desperado to me.

                The only other time I’ve really been in a gender conundrum was at a village dinner. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great evening – fab food (as always, and from now on I’m only eating my curry served from a bucket), but I’ll be honest, the situation made me a tad uncomfortable. The men and children sat on half of the field, facing each other, and the women on the other. I haven’t seen a gender divide like that since primary school discos, separated by the Panda Pop table. I felt very much like diving in the middle and shouting ‘I don’t believe in the gender binary –GROUP HUG!’ but somehow I don’t think that would have gone down too well. ‘So what did you decide?’ I hear you cry. I’ll tell you what I did. I did what any self-respecting English-person would do... I dithered, until I was guided to the men’s side with the rest of our group. Was that the right thing to do? I don’t know. I imagine I would have had a very insightful night if I had sat with the ladies, but then again as talking isn’t really the done thing at Indian meals then maybe I would have just been very lonely. Nobody objected to me being there, so why anybody else? I don’t know, like I said, I’m not here to cause a feminist revolution. Cultural awareness seems to be winning out so far.