Inside the mind of a normal woman
Normal woman? What does it really mean? If you are a woman, you must have opened this article to check if you fall in a category of a normal woman. Right? And if you are a man, you must be trying to understand what really happens inside God’s most confused, unpredictable creature. Let us try to find answer to both.
Recently I was with one of my friend for festival celebration. In the morning, she did everything possible with her might to appease God, including so called “chappan bhog”, pooja, aarti, followed by bhajans. And at the end of the day, she preferred to enjoy some drink alone. What’s your inference about her? Is she an orthodox? Is she modern? Or she is simply confused woman?
Lets consider another example, a woman who can earn more than average man of her age, who seems to be decisive, confident and sound, but she needs help in deciding what shall she wear for her next big day. Single word which comes to mind after thinking this is “unreliable”. Isn’t it? But I can tell you one thing for sure, all of these scenarios are perfectly normal for her and she is right in all of them. There is a need for us to understand the purpose behind her act.
When she was worshipping God, she wanted to make sure that her next generations know our culture. She wants to be the one who is continuing family culture, who wants peace and prosperity for her family. So, she did everything. But, at the end of the day, she was just tired and wanted to be herself. What else can help other than a glass of wine? After doing so many things for others, it’s obvious for her to wish for some “me” time.
When she is assertive, decisive in office or while handling her team, her experience has taught her to behave like that to get things done. But, when it comes to her dress or simply her looks, she wants to be absolutely sure because her looks is her utmost priority item. When men opt for second opinion while buying a car or a house, do we judge them? No, because its important for them. It’s a same thing with her dress.
When a woman is always looked as confused individual, there is a need to change this. It’s her situation which is confusing, not her. At home she is expected to work as home maker, at office she is expected to compete with men. She cannot be both. A man wants her daughter to be financially independent and it’s a same man who wants her daughter in law to let him take charge of her money.
A typical woman’s decision making depend on the situation, on the role she is performing at that moment. She can be Sati to compromise everything for her family’s honor. She can be Maa Durga to take care of every situation. She can be Maa Kali to fight against the odds. But, at the end she is just Maa Parvati who has to take various incarnations depending on the situation at hand. If we can accept and worship different forms of Maa Parvati, we should also accept every mood of women around us.
I do understand — next obvious question which comes to mind is — her behavior is not consistent in similar situation all the time. To a scenario which she has handled maturely before, she may refuse to deal with it again. There is a reason to that also. A typical woman’s brain works like Google’s Tensor processing unit. There can be multiple dimensions(tensors) involved in her decision making. She is not moody. When a typical male brain look at situation unbiased, with same view all the time, a woman’s decision making is influenced by many things — including situation at home, her hormone cycle, previous response to her act, many other things.
So when it’s all normal, there is a need for total acceptance. Understand the situation before judging her. I have seen it multiple times, consistent judging leads to self-doubt in her mind. It often degrades her confidence. Logically she might be wrong, but considering factors or dimensions her brain has considered for the instinct — she is always right.
If you are thinking, this confusion, self-doubt, lack of confidence is affecting your life. There is a simple solution to it which is same as writing efficient machine learning algorithm — check if you need to collect more data, Is my decision biased because of biased input? Is it getting deluded by outliers? Take a pause, think and then adapt.
So next time when you doubt yourself to be confused — stand up and shout out loudly — I know why I behaved like that and it is totally acceptable. No regret. I know my worth and its only me who can define me. No one else.
