Umbrellas

It's funny how you can get to so used gender specifics. Simple concepts like 'blue for little boys' and 'pink for little girls' gets ingrained into your psyche even as an adult. Men act certain ways and like certain things and woman also have their gender specific attitudes and interests. Obviously the study of the psychological differences between the sexes isn't any thing new. Whole libraries could be filled on this topic. My purpose of writing this blog isn't to complete with John Gray and his Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus series of books but rather to talk about one small gender specific attitude towards ... umbrellas. On a rainy day in Vancouver (which, if you're a Vancouverite you're quite familiar with) it's quite easy to know the sex of the person by the umbrella they are using. Men's umbrellas are very masculine: they're long, sturdy looking, and always a manly colour like black or something equally dark. Women's umbrellas are petite, can fit comfortably into a purse, feminine looking and always happy bright colours or patterns. Women can get away with using a man's umbrella but a man caught using a woman's petite flowery-patterned umbrella may find himself mocked and/or ridiculed. Or at least, this is how the mindset is ingrained into the male psyche. So imagine my horror recently when I looked out the window, see pouring rain here in the Philippines, and realize there are no manly umbrellas in our apartment. All our umbrellas here are happy bright and sunny colours that would be at home in a baby girl's nursery and never ever in the closet of a man. I want ... no ... I NEED, my black manly umbrella. So on realizing my choices were either the mocking and ridicule brought on by using a woman's umbrella or getting drenched with rain water I opted, rather grudgingly, to stay dry and use the woman's umbrella. So I exited the building and waited until the last possible second before opening the umbrella to the rain. The umbrella opened and I walked onto the street. I embarrassingly hid my face from the passers-by knowing full well a white guy with a girl's umbrella is probably more humorous to a Filipino than a local man and his Barbie-like umbrella. I walked down the street and finally lifted the umbrella away from my cowering face so I could see the cars approaching at the intersection. What I saw shocked me. No, not only was it shocking but also Earth-shattering. 37 years of male conditioning melted away in mere seconds. What I saw was a sight no Vancouverite would ever think possible. This may shock you also. Are you ready to find out? Okay, here it is: I discovered that Filipino men don't care what sort of umbrellas they use. As long as it covers them from the rain that's all they care about. I saw men using flowered umbrellas. I saw men using happy neon yellow umbrellas. I saw men using hot pink umbrellas. I even saw one guy walking around joyously (more like skipping actually) with his bright pink Hello Kitty umbrella lifted proudly above his head. Can you believe it? No black masculine umbrellas any where. I felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz clicking my manly boot hills together screaming 'there's no place like home, there's no place like home.' Dammit Toto, we're definitely not in Kansas anymore!! It's the Twilight Zone of the umbrella world! It's strange but you know, it's almost comforting to see this. It's about pure logic; you need shelter from the rain and you use anything you can. Who cares what it looks like! Once I understood this logic I too proudly skipped around with my happy girl's umbrella. If the men of this country can ignore umbrella gender specifics so can I!!