I can never be a woman.

Not that I plan on, lets just make that clear right now. This isn’t going be a post about my attempting to push my danglies between my legs and dress up in a skirt, so go fill your Trannie fetish somewhere else. Just making a point that has been brought home to me in the last few days. Being a woman requires far more patience, strength and resilience than I am capable of.

My wife went through close to 10 hours of labor on Friday and gave birth to a a devastatingly beautiful little girl. Then, just seconds after the doctor placed my daughter on her chest, my wife turned to me and said, “I’ve already forgotten about the pain I just went through.”

My daughter, Anya Shah, entered our atmosphere at 5:27 pm, on Friday the 8th of May. She is healthy, beautiful and making me more and more aware of how weak I am. Every time I look at her I go through the same cliched feelings of joy and surrender that I knew I would. That she is the gravitational center of my universe is of no surprise to anyone. That my wife can give birth and then do a 100 push ups while arm wrestling a Rhino is of no surprise to me.

What frightens me is how pathetic I seem in comparison.

Women like to joke about how if Men had to give birth the world’s resources would have been devoted to making it a painless and effortless procedure. It’s true though. Because if I had to go through what my wife just did I’d give up all of Pakistan’s secrets and throw in the Enigma code as well. Before the first contraction ended, even.

And now I look at my daughter, and I look at the world around me and hope she has her mother’s strength. Because mine would fail her in this wretched country. Pakistan as it is, has been and probably will remain, is a horrible place to be a woman. It’s misogynistic, oppressive and sadistic to women. And the whole fucking country uses the bullshit excuse of “God made me do it!” to justify itself. We are like a Psychopath who just refashioned his family into a new set of lampshades and then blames his actions on God speaking to him.

In Pakistan, a woman is stared at, harassed, belittled, abused, neglected, tortured and throughout it all blamed for everything that is happening to her. If I had to go through any of that, ever, I would suffer a series of psychotic breakdowns and either end up being arrested for driving my car over anyone with a penis who came in my way, or give up and sit in a corner curled up in a fetal position.

Yet my wife continues. She laughs and tells jokes and sings songs and makes things and brings Life into this world. And now my Anya will face the same challenges and same stupid stupid bigotry. And all I can pray for is that she has her mother’s strength. Because her father was too weak to even make this world a better place for her to come into.

Thank you, Anya. You have made me want to be stronger.