'Life's Unfair, I Wish I Was A Boy.' So Many Girls Have Thought This. How Sad Is That?

Life's never easy. But for some, it's easier than it is for others. Men, for instance. In a patriarchal world, they live like kings, presiding over all other genders on the hierarchy. Advantages, privileges, luxuries - so much falls into their kitty, affording them comfort like none of the rest can imagine. Being a man seems so painless, in fact, that most of us women have at least once imagined how much better off we'd be as men.

But should that momentary desire be an occasion for men to gloat about their gender? Or introspect just how unfair life pans out under male precedence for the rest of us?

We're happy being women, trust us. It's a blessing. But against the context of all that we exclusively have to face - gender-based violence, sexism in the workplace, misogynistic relatives, the lack of opportunities - the mind does wobble sometimes. Not because womanhood is a burden, but because manhood has unimaginable concessions.

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So noticeable is the gender disparity our world is balanced on that even as young girls, we realise that boys have so many privileges over us. They're allowed to play until later in the evenings, their sports look like so much fun, they don't have to stress over the lengths of skirts.

When we mature into women, things don't change. Their grip becomes even more forceful, taking our independence and liberties and rights into a chokehold. We can't walk on streets at night without fearing for our lives; homes and offices aren't free of predatory men; everything from our clothes to our morality is a litmus test to determine our characters; marriage and motherhood is expected to become a duty-bound priority, above all else.

Boxed within these gendered prejudices, how can women not dream of the delights that lie outside? Only so we can wake up and be ourselves without sexist judgment hammering us at every step, we imagine how glorious it would be to live as men. The bar is that low.

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Wish I Was A Boy: Let's Make A World Where Girls Don't Have To Think This

It's sad that this is how we have built the world - where a small girl finds the idea of being someone else more appealing than being her own self. Because the prospect of losing her identity and individuality would be worth assuming another gender just so safety is relatively more guaranteed.

How can she not think this way, when baby girls only some months old are raped? When girls are strangled by their own fathers who'd rather have had sons? In a society where girls and women are so disposable and unwanted, how can we not wander towards the thought of breathing easier as men?

But when that moment of faltering is past, we return to reality. We pick ourselves back up and march on, like before, to fight for the cause of gender equity, of women's empowerment, of &t=4s">feminism - movements that have a real potential to actualise our imagination of stepping onto equal pedestals as our male counterparts.

Life still won't be easy but at least we'll all forge ahead together with equality like we were meant to, isn't it?

Views expressed are the author's own.