Girls never had it easy in life, if you have a brother then you have to compete for your space at home, if you go to a co-ed school then you have to compete with the boys in your class, if you are in office then you have to compete with your male colleagues for boss’ recognition.

Girls are most of the time treated as liabilities not assets. But this article is not about girls Vs boys or why girls should be treated as equals. It’s actually the opposite – It’s about girls being treated as Wonder Woman and men as Rip Van Winkle.

Have you read the story of Rip Van Winkle, an extremely lazy man who prefers to sleep all the time rather than do any real work? One day frustrated by his wife’s constant appeals (I changed to appeal but the book mentioned the word “nagging”. I honestly feel she was requesting him), he walked out of the house and returned after 20 years of sleeping.

Now it’s a comic story so it’s not true, but it got me thinking that how easy it is for men to be lazy, not do anything, walk away anytime they want without worrying and still be treated royally because they are men.

On the other hand, we women are truly Wonder Woman, we work, work and work and still are expected to not get tired and continue working till we collapse on the ground dead. If only the dead could work then women would be made to work for their own funeral also….So much for having a better body, God just works in mysterious ways.

My routine day starts at 6 AM in the morning – Praying, cooking (lunch, dinner, breakfast all simultaneously in a span of an hour), sending my kid to school, getting ready and going to office, work non-stop in office, leave office around 3, go to bus stop (I take bus to be eco-friendly, a personal choice), wait for bus for 30-40 minutes, take bus and reach home by 4:30, do pending work, kid time (drive to classes, homework, play, dinner, bath, story reading, bedtime), serve dinner to everyone, cleanup, do more of pending work, read book, sleep at 1 AM.

All this work, phew, and that’s not just me. This is true for almost all the women I know, some even work harder.

Now if I was a man, my routine day would be (some might argue but this is true for 80-90% of men) – Wake up at 7 or 8 AM (doesn’t matter since you don’t have to do anything at home), drink tea / eat breakfast that is already served on table, read newspaper, get ready for office, go to office, work in office, more work in office, finish work in office, come home by 8-9 PM (again doesn’t matter what time you go home), eat dinner (which is served on the table already), watch TV, sleep.

This is not the worst part. The worst part is that even after being a Wonder Woman, you are expected to not be tired because when your brother/husband comes back from work, you are told “poor fellow, he must have come so tired after working whole day in office, please give him some water/tea”.

So even if you are working as a Wonder Woman, a self-proclaimed Spider Man will always come home and expect you to serve him hot food because he is a super hero (even in reality all he did was put some webs here and there and swing around). Being a woman, whatever you do is just not enough. I blame God for our creation though, instead of giving us human bodies, he should have put batteries in it with charger being sleep. Once our energy is drained out, we would just konk off and go to sleep leaving men to figure out on their own how to heat food in microwave.

In today’s time “Men are from Mars and Women from Venus” should be changed to “Women are Wonder Woman and Men are Rip Van Winkle”.