Mood Swings:
Men are from Mars... women are from Venus
By
Yasmine El-Rashidi
Hips and bellies come in different shapes and sizes, though both make their presence strikingly felt. There is, however, one obvious difference between the two. Bellies are flaunted, whereas hips are not. From a female perspective it boils down to one thing: fat, in reality, equals excess.
"Control freaks" is what we can term it. Women, to varying degrees, are certainly that. We control our hair and our clothes, the food we eat and number of sodas we consume. We get worked up if our homes are in a mess, or if our wardrobes, papers or even thoughts are not in order. We stay up for hours planning our lives, making list upon list.
The one thing we do not mind doing in excess -- and we do, I admit, without control -- is spending, of course. This type of indulgence enters a class of its own, a class in which men also have a place. Men, like women, indulge in their own forms of consumption, and both genders complain about the bad habits of the other gender. Women are criticised for shopping, men for their drinking and eating habits.
My parents are classic cases of both of the above. In the case of my mother, it goes beyond sheer shopping sprees. While spending money is the primary thrill, she gets pleasure out of window shopping, too. "Ma, what's wrong?" I used to ask her on afternoons when she was exceptionally laconic. "You're grumpy." Her response, as she gathered her belongings and headed for the door, was always the same: "Nothing, it's nothing."
I couldn't figure out what was going on and why she would re-emerge a few hours later as her usual chatty, glowing self. It took some time, and growing up, until I finally figured out what those afternoon disappearances were all about. I understood because I fell into the habit, too. Not just of buying and enjoying what was bought but also of plotting my next grand purchase.
"I had a wonderful shopping spree," I SMSed a friend in Switzerland a few weeks ago. "I bought books, a toe ring, a chain and earrings for my mother, an anklet and another book..." The list went on.
I felt great. I was smiling. I was high on energy and life. Shopping had become my therapy, too. And while the bills are sometimes sky-high and my allotted budget shrivels from one week to the next, the habit does not die. The desire to quit does not exist. Monetary indulgence, to me, is quite okay. For my brother and other men I know, it certainly is not.
"Oh you're so silly," my elder brother used to tell me. "You waste so much money on such silly things." My father was of the same belief. He, instead, would cook and eat what I perceived as excessive amounts. We didn't even need to go to the kitchen to know what was going on. The smells and clatter were enough.
On these random days, the kitchen would overflow with pots and pans, plastic bags, containers and cartons of food.
My father would cook for hours. Once the food had been tasted and portions offered to friends, his solemn mood would lift and his sociable, active and charming persona would return.
Both my parents are aware of their habits and both recognise -- I think -- that they are excessive. My mother laughs as she recalls tales of excessive splurges, and my father smiles as he pats the results of his indulgences. "I'm not fat," he would say with pride as he stood in front of the bedroom mirror and tapped his bulge. "I'm just big."
I, it seems, have become a combination of the two. I am the norm for most women my age. When we spend, we smile. When we eat, we do not. Rather than standing in front of our mirrors and recalling the pleasure of that last cheesecake, when we look at our hips, we fret and cry. We have mini-hysterics at the two sizable humps emerging from our sides. We bash ourselves for eating so much. "I'm out of control," we reprimand ourselves. "I am useless and fat."
Men, as my father says, are not quite the same. My male colleagues at work -- most of whom have some sort of bulge protruding from their front sections -- have their own macho perspective. "I have a belly," says one with a guffaw. "I don't like it, but what am I to do," he continues matter-of-factly. "The problem," one male colleague happily philosophised, "is that women are superficial. They're more concerned with what's on the outside, whereas for us, it is what's on the inside that really counts." My male co-workers all cheered his response. As the laughter subsided and the relative quiet resumed -- my own nerves calming -- I reflected on what had just been said. Rather than chastising him for his skewed perspective, I chuckled again.
Men will never quite get it.
