Women are crazy. Women are too emotional. Women are irrational. Women are too complicated and too difficult to understand. I agree with all these statements, even the last one. Now before my fellow comrades go hysterical (because women are prone to hysteria, remember) at such outright treachery from one of their ilk, do hear me out.

Women are crazy because they set the bar ridiculously high for themselves, with no thought of self-preservation. Why do they think they can have a full-time job and then come home to cook a dinner for the seven friends their clueless other half has impulsively invited, and later, in a somnambulic state, read Baby her favourite story for the 67th time and then finish the ironing before collapsing into bed? I mean, how insane would you have to be to stay up all night to make 100 parathas for your son, who's going off to college in Canada, so that that the poor fellow will have something homemade in the freezer in case he gets snowed in or on those days when the fridge is like a barren igloo?

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Women are too emotional. They cry oceans at the corniest film scenes and believe every sob story that is told to them, making them premier targets of beggars' syndicates and mediocre con artists. Of course, in most cases this empathy is well targeted, but there are also times it can backfire. Like the time you gave a loan to an office staffer whose mother apparently needed "a life-saving operation" and after a year or so of no repayment and continuous waffling, you decided to just write it off as a bad debt that will never be paid. Later, you found out that the person was a compulsive gambler and your "help" only enabled the addiction. Sounds a bit like the state of our banking sector.

Women can be pretty irrational. No matter what they achieve, it is just not enough. They are constantly in guilt mode and refuse to completely believe in themselves. A woman may have reached the pinnacle of success in her field, say making it to CEO of a company, with her peers being all highly acclaimed men. She has won umpteen awards and is on all kinds of important male-dominated boards. But she still suffers from imposter syndrome and gets depressed at the laugh lines near her eyes or because she cannot get back to her pre-wedding weight.

Low self-esteem and female-hood are BFFs.

Thus, there are women in their twenties and thirties with hourglass figures who still think that they need to lose weight and are old! The beauty standards set by the fashion and cosmetics industries, and society in general (dictated by mostly men), make sure this self-flagellation goes on in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and so on. The menopausal 50s constitute the decade when self-loathing reaches its peak thanks to the hormonal roller-coaster rides, the attaining of the official Aunty or Khalamma title, the end of lustrous hair and buttery smooth skin, and the beginning of eternal belly fat. It also means becoming very high-maintenance, trying to conceal a myriad of unsavoury secrets: thinning, greying hair; droopy eyelids; that I'm-so-tired-of-everything look. Hence the cardinal rule for all males: no matter what age they are, NEVER EVER ask women how old they are.

Women are complicated, for sure. Sometimes they are so complex that even women don't understand women. But the male species seems to have a special gift for obtuseness where females are concerned. When a man asks his wife, "Are you upset that I didn't get you anything for our anniversary?" And she says, "Not at all," in an unusually shrill voice, it doesn't mean she is magnanimous enough to overlook such an unforgivable oversight. It means she has put a big black mark next to his name on her mental list of grievances. Women's minds are just too hard to read. They will complain that they have to do everything in the house and the husbands are not of much help. But they will never be happy with the groceries their clueless mates have brought. This is because it's just not much fun to have to cut two huge katla and fit in a few months' worth of turnips in the fridge, after a whole day of keeping house. This is why men should shut off their brains when they go grocery shopping and just go with the "list."

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Men should realise by now that women don't "say," they "expect." They expect men to forgo their daily evening adda with their buddies and instead talk to them about feelings and stuff. They expect minimal effort to show their proclaimed devotion on special days even when they say they don't care about those things. They expect their partners to help with the dishes or put the kids to bed, and just allow them to feel human again. They expect frequent hugs and affectionate gestures even when they are 80 years old.

So agreed, we are sometimes overemotional, irrational, complicated, and a little crazy. But any guesses as to why we're such stressed-out timebombs? Could it be that women have to put up with the mind-blowing discrepancies birthed and nurtured by a universal system of male domination, in other words, the patriarchy? Could it be because this system requires women to look like Raquel Welch but behave like Mother Teresa? Could it be that women are required to be supermoms, super-wives, and super professionals while being given second class citizenship? Points to ponder during our once-a-year celebration of womanhood.

Aasha Mehreen Amin is joint editor at The Daily Star.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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