Women and men are not the same, neither are we living the same reality. I once asked a female friend of mine to message me every time she was cat called, and every week she had my phone lighting up like a Christmas tree. Just getting the notifications was annoying, so god knows how she felt. No. This is not a relatable experience for me, or certainly not to that extent. But so too I am also sure that the feeling of invisibility, distance, and coldness, that so many men live with, is something most woman cannot truly understand either. Men pass through society like a ghost. Women have the eyes of society forever upon them. Men are starved of positive attention. Women get it shouted at them from car windows. One side just wants to be validated. And the other can’t help but feel violated. It’s no surprise that one simply cannot see the world through the other’s eyes. And I’ll tell you this – as someone who brushes his teeth with infographics every day, no amount of data will ever close that gap, for it is one we all must do for ourselves. Understanding the life of another, is not found by thumbing through research, nor by flinging pie charts around like frisbees. It comes from listening, understanding, and granting good faith to one another. If I were to write a list of the things feminism taught me, top of that list would be ‘the personal is political’. Because it’s true. Politics does not happen in parliament; but in living rooms, playgrounds, and across kitchen tables. It is at your bus stop. It is in your bathrooms. It is around the water cooler. Politics is personal. Neither are we spreadsheets, bar charts or diagrams. We are human, each shaped by the stories of those around us. So allow yourself to be shaped by those stories. Let the part of your brain that is brimming with all the things you do know, be as large and malleable as the part that knows nothing. Most of all try to listen. Not interrupt, antagonise or compare. Just listen to the other side, and try to see the world through their eyes too. So tell me, how do you experience the world?

2023-05-04