Sorry guys, but us females just have it harder

I've spent a good portion of my "adult" life thinking about if I were ever reborn and had my pick of gender, if I would like to come back as a woman again or instead choose to be a man. The practical part of my brain says, "Duh, be a man. Then you would know what it's like to live as both woman and man." You know, just to get the full range of human experience. And then I think, "Shmeh... boring. No high heels? No short dresses? No fun haircuts? Pass."

Ha. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I did just reduce gender to people who wear ridiculous clothing and people who do not. But in all seriousness, women have it harder in life. Sure, so do all minorities; gays, blacks, Latinos, transgendered people, Asians - everyone who isn't a white man in America - has it harder. But I present the argument that of all these groups, the women therein have it even harder. A few points.

1. Childbirth. I mean, WTF? Really. Completely ridiculous.

2. Periods. I can't complain too much, because mine aren't terrible, but it can be fucking inconvenient to plan your sex life around them. Provided you actually have a sex life.

3. Balancing a career and a relationship. I've been thinking about this one a lot recently. In my experience, men do not see this as a difficult choice, or even as a choice at all. To them, work "naturally" comes first - or so they want us to think - and we ladies are just supposed to accept it. When A got promoted, close to the end of our relationship, he got a BlackBerry and I warned him that if he used it obnoxiously - at meals, in the middle of conversation, really any time when we were together (since we we were together so infrequently), I was going to be upset. He continued to use it, pulling it out in the middle of convos, and when I asked him to stop, he would inevitably put up his "hold plz" finger and respond with, "HoldonasecondIjustneedtocheckthisonethingforworkitwillonlytakeasecondOKthanks." Um, no it's not OK. Women are naturally expected to put relationships first and career second. Well, I'm just gonna say it: this whole dynamic is some classic bullshit. I don't even have a problem putting my relationship and my partner first, but only if he is willing to do the same - and so far, I haven't met one who is.

4. Being pretty. This is probably not the argument you think I'm going to make. I'm not going to complain about allegedly being pretty, and say that it impedes me from accomplishing as much in my life as unpretty people - instead I'm going to say that it's not fair that men get to have the outsider experience of all the prettiness in women. They get to fuck us, and touch our hair, and feel us against them, and watch us put on makeup and slip fabulous heels onto our pretty little feet - and we get to watch them... shave? Brush their teeth? Fix their hair with their hands? Even lesbians can't experience women the way men do, because they are women too; only men have the unique experience of such amazing, beautiful creatures from a standpoint of not actually being an amazing, beautiful creature. And most of them don't even appreciate it. For a while, when the relationship is new, you can see that spark in their eyes when they look at you; but after a while, they're no longer enchanted and seem more bored than anything. Unacceptable.

5. Sex. For women, sex can be a very complicated thing. It doesn't *have to be, but it can be. Sure, there are women who have sex like men - with no emotional attachment, no care about who the person actually is, and disregard for having any semblance of an actual relationship. But for the rest of us - myself included, I think - it's not that easy. Sex for a woman is innately so different because you are - quite literally - letting someone else inside you. Straight men don't know what that's like. Well, not the average straight man anyway. Lolz. I hope it doesn't make me a non-feminist for saying that; I just know that the older I get, the more complicated sex gets, and I'm kinda over it.

6. The pregnancy scare. This might be right at the top of the list. In fact, I'm not sure why I didn't list it first. Guys, you will *never know what it's like to think there might be another (unwanted) person growing inside you. Sure, you can know what it's like to get dat late text, dat "I think I'm late" text - in the words of Weezy - but yeah, it's not the same. Even if your girl sends you that text, I'll bet you aren't counting the days, the hours, the minutes, that her p is late. Cuz yeah, that's how it is. And buying a pregnancy test in a Wal-Mart in podunk middle of nowhere America? Yeah, a low point.

7. On that same point, birth control. It's simultaneously the best and the worst thing to happen to women in the last 50 years. Sure, it's awesome; it gives women a control over their sex lives they never had before, and it's certainly something we should all be thankful for. But it can have some fucking nasty side effects, some of which I have experienced: extreme mood swings, severe depression, suicidal thoughts, hair loss, breakouts, weird spot bleeding. Sure, they're working on male birth control, but how soon will we really see it? Come on, science.

I hope this post doesn't come across as too bitchy/whiny, but I just wanted to share some of the frustrations I've been having recently. A lot of them probably come from my own insecurity in my identity at this point in my life; I told y'all I was questioning everything I thought I knew about myself, and gender is not excluded. As far as my potential rebirth is concerned, the jury is still out.

But, women get to do stuff like this*, so I think you know which way I'm leanin.

Until next time.

*The fact that one of her background dancers might actually be a dude is irrelevant