Yin or Yang

 Yin or yang ?

My neighbour yesterday talked about her grand daughter declaring herself to be a boy. She dresses up like a boy, flattens her breasts with a tight sheet and walks like a boy. She is a good kid, her grades are A+, she plays in her school band and doesn’t go galavanting with friends. 

This is getting quite common these days, kids declaring their gender to be different from the one they were born with. Some call it a fad, others say it’s woks. 

But that set me thinking. We are all born with both male and female hormones. Women also have testosterone and men have estrogen. The degree varies and that’s how our body changes, our emotions affect us. Men are tough, they don’t express their emotions or not supposed to because society has conditioned them to be macho. Women, on the other hand, are more expressive with their emotions, are not tough and get easily rattled, as the stereotype goes. But women actually are mentally and emotionally stronger than men, studies have shown. And men can be sensitive too if they’re not confining themselves to the stereotype. 

We have famous male dancers, singers, painters, poets sculptors, chefs. If men were not sensitive, how could they create works of art? Even today we quote freely from Shakespeare, Keats and Shaw. In India Kalidasa wrote four epics and in one he expresses the pain of separation so sincerely it makes you cry. And women have their so called ‘male’ side too. So many of our modern inventions are by females starting from a simple dishwasher to radium. 

Women support men emotionally in times of crisis and men have their shoulder ready in case we feel like crying. They are complimentary to each other. Like yin and yang. 

A friend of mine had asked me to write about this. There is still so much to discuss and I’ll continue this tomorrow. 

What do you think ? Do write to me if you’d like to add an angle to this and if you’d like me to write about any other issues. 

Be happy in being who you are.

So be it !!!