Distractingly Sexy Despite Being A Woman

Every once in a while, I wonder, simply wonder, whether I might one day sit at my computer not knowing what to blog about.  A complete blank.  Because there's nothing new to report, critique, or think through.

But, the world is a cornucopia, I have come to understand, and overflows with nourishing food for the mind.  This wannabe thinker, thus, has no problems whatsoever on issues and ideas to blog about ;)

A couple of days ago, I posted this on Facebook:

An hour later, a high school friend, who has a wonderful sense of sarcastic humor, replied:

You know #DespiteBeingAWoman was the tag to use.

I didn't know.  So, I then spent a few minutes reading some of the #DespiteBeingAWoman hashtagged posts on Facebook and Twitter and had quite a few laughs.

The day ended.

Another day, another gaffe.

Thankfully, not by Modi this time.  It was by a Nobel-prize winning scientist, Sir Tim Hunt:

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls,” Mr. Hunt said Monday at the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea. “Three things happen when they are in the lab: You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry.”

This is a scientist who knows well how to dig really deep holes for himself--in a later interview, while saying sorry, he "clarified" his thoughts:

“It’s terribly important that you can criticize people’s ideas without criticizing them and if they burst into tears, it means that you tend to hold back from getting at the absolute truth,” he said. “Science is about nothing but getting at the truth, and anything that gets in the way of that diminishes, in my experience, the science.”

The twitter world was soon trending with #DistractinglySexy.

Modi and Hunt speak for the old days and an older generation. Deep inside them rests the old stereotypes about the "weaker sex."  The good thing is that the old generation is dying, and the youth live in a considerably less unequal world and are growing up with far healthier understanding of girls and women in society--even in countries that are notorious for their awful treatment of girls and women.  Like Pakistan, where the "first female fighter pilot is smashing stereotypes."

Yes, a female fighter pilot in Pakistan, even as Sir Tim Hunt thinks that women can only burst into tears!

Flight Lt. Ayesha Farooq, Pakistan’s only combat-ready female air force pilot, has become both an international celebrity and a symbol of a new Pakistan, where women are breaking barriers and taking on roles traditionally closed to them.

 Yes, "the times they are a changin."

Farooq's mother was completely supportive of her daughter's path. Her extended family, however, didn't approve.
"But Ayesha won them over with her determination," Shah explains. "Today, they ask her for advice on how their daughters can join the air force,” she says. ...
“What we’re seeing is huge change. ... What’s coming out is that all these issues about women are being highlighted when before they were never paid attention to. ... I’m really excited myself to be witnessing this in this day and age,” Shah says.

I, too, am excited to be a witness to all these wonderful changes.  We do live in some interesting times, which include the likes of Modi and Hunt too!