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Growing up, most of the things that are taught to Asian children are similar to those that are taught in the West. Eating properly, sleeping on time, respecting your elders, abiding by rules etc. However, there’s a great divide when it comes to sex education, leading to a disparity between how men and women see each other.
As sex is still considered a taboo in most of Asia, parents avoid teaching their children about reproduction & its consequences on the female body. So when boys get to the age of 18 and their hormones kick in, they usually tend to objectify women. However, there are moments of clarity when the male gender is able to look beyond these stereotypes. One budding doctor from Pakistan experienced such a moment.
In a lengthy and heartfelt Facebook post, Shabbir Mustafa from Pakistan wrote about his first time witnessing child-birth via C-section and how it changed the way he perceives the female gender.
“So i saw my first C-section last Tuesday and it honestly imbued me with a new found respect for women. I’d read and heard lots about the miracle of childbirth and as sacred as i thought it was, i had no idea it’d be so affecting in person. After rotating for about 2 weeks in Obs & Gynae, i’m already astounded by the resilience of every woman i interact with.”
Shabbir discussed in detail about how the procedure of childbirth went down and the exact moment where it hit him on an extremely emotional level. You can read the entire post here.
For the layman, during a C-section, women are given a special kind of anaesthesia which numbs them from the waist down. They’re usually awake during this (although sedated and disoriented). But as soon as they know that their baby has come into this world (taken out of the womb by the surgeons), despite all the numbness, despite the pain, despite the discomfort, all the pulling and stretching, all the labour and the exhaustion, there’s only one thing on their mind, the wellbeing of their baby.
During my first time witnessing this, as the surgeon got the baby out (hearing the baby cry instantaneously is another miracle), the lady on the table, almost asleep from the exhaustion and sedation, looked towards her side (where i was standing) and chanted just one thing ‘mera bacha theek hai’ (is my baby fine?)
The whole thing caught me off guard and tears welled up to my throat and i looked away to avoid sobbing and worrying the woman, as i reassured her that the baby was fine.
Almost none of us realise what women are actually capable of. They literally do everything AND still have the strength to pull something this miraculous off. I’d just like to quote some lines from Maxwell’s song ‘This Woman’s Work’ (which was coincidentally featured two weeks back in a show (the handmaid’s tale) about the subjugation of women in a fictional united states)
‘I know you’ve got a little life in you left
I know you’ve got a lot of strength left’
The song is primarily about childbirth and labour, and how a woman still carries on unshaken. Please do take out sometime to listen.
Here’s to respecting and understanding women and the miracles they’re capable of.
Men are always portrayed as the stronger sex but as proven by this post and what I’ve seen personally, that’s not exactly true. It needs a ton of courage to carry a living being in your womb for nine whole months and is no way comparable to picking up dumbbells on a daily basis. And it’s a whole another thing to brave the fear of delivering the baby while doctors are probing at you with sharp objects.
However, as Shabbir says, none of this is to portray women as baby-making machines. Instead, it’s just an instance to show what all women are capable of. In addition to that, it’s to show that, given the opportunity, women can do anything fearlessly, efficiently & compassionately.
Representative Cover Image Source
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