Contributed by Nicholas Pediaditakis, MD, DLFAPA
Being alive ought to be, and is, a wonderful adventure – and should not treated as a disease, in spite of adversities and circumstances like living in a bad climate, in a poorly governed society, or in a place with poor resources or difficult circumstances. This is true for women and men alike. Nevertheless, the tasks, challenges, as well as the biological imperatives, and above all the bigotry, discrimination, and unfairness weigh disproportionately on the shoulders of women.
They are creative, contributory and contributing, participating in social affairs with the additional joy of motherhood, and their particular make up of richness of sentiments and perceptiveness (important for raising successfully a child, which as a human infant is born 3 years too early). Nevertheless, the burdens are not the same.
The opportunity of motherhood pins down mainly the woman for 3-5 years, since the human baby is born three years too early in order to give the head an opportunity to grow. So, she has to be much more cautious, circumspect, and careful. In addition, perhaps this may not be known, but a woman has a finite number of ova for fertilization from the very beginning, which are aging along with her. Thus, the procreation opportunity is only limited to only 25 years.
Further, she has to face — something that has been worse in the past but still embedded in most societies, including our own fortunately now less so — unfair practices and discrimination from salary to creative opportunities and confronted often with mistreatment and misbehavior.
A hidden burden has been added in the last few years. Along with a welcome trend towards less discrimination and abuse — which were both common occurrences in the recent past and continue to be in many parts of the world — the modern women are now burdened with expected employment outside of the house in order to augment the family income. One may suspect it was a clever way by the society to increase productivity by lowering wages for all, but especially women, so now a women is functioning as a mother, a house keeper, a lover to her husband, and a wage-earner outside the house.
These conditions are not helping neither with her happiness nor with the marriage — many of which end up in divorce, adding to the burden of caring for the children — not a happy outcome for women.
As George Orwell had said, “All people are equal , some people are more equal than others!”
Copyright © 2016 by Nicholas Pediaditakis, MD
For more information on Dr. Pediaditakis and his Raleigh NC mental health clinic, visit his Facebook page.
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