Who said that men and women are equal? - Chi ha parlato di parita' tra uomini e donne?

Men and women are equal and have equal opportunities. Yeah, sure. Only a career woman obsessively chasing her dream job could come up with such a lie. Really.

Bullshit. Men and women are NOT equal. At least equality isn't true for most women. As a friend often said to me in London, women, whether they like it or not, are made to have (and raise) babies. Having and raising children should become their top priority, whether they like it or not. I remember my friend saying: "Don't kill yourself with work. You are a girl! Come out with us. Do what the girls do! Sorry to disappoint you but, whether you like it or not, women are made to experience the joy of (or bear the cross of) motherhood! Because, sooner or later, it'll come".

Then the words of my first landlord, a Turkish woman in her fifties with long dark hair, come to my mind. "Don't waste your time studying. One day, you'll meet a nice man and that's it. You'll have a bambino and all your efforts, gone! " I remember trying not to laugh at her. What a backward, sexist, narrow-minded loser.

Yet last night, those remarks were haunting me. I could not let them go.

Yesterday, I went to see my gynecologist and soon after I found myself in such excruciating pain I couldn't breathe. They gave me the highest dosage of Motrin allowed and it still took an hour for my cramps to subside enough so that I could leave the examination room. No, I am not pregnant with a second child, no. Three months after I gave birth to William, in order to avoid unexpected children, the gynecologist persuaded me (with all the good things she said) to have an IUD put in place... Yes, the one with hormones. The alternative choices would have been (1) go back to the unbearable devastating side-effects of the past birth control methods I used, or  (2) accept the risk that I might become pregnant again and resign myself to the idea that my London friend is right - women are made to have and raise children, whether they like it or not.

Although there were only few problems for the first two years - I felt like a girl who had just discovered condoms!, the IUD has turned out to be worse than any of the other birth control methods I have used in the past. Recently, I have even come to believe that it has played a role in my difficulties in walking (this morning, I was limping, while I was preparing Tronk's breakfast) and the mysterious swelling in my extremities. So I went to see the gynecologist to ask her to have it removed, once and for all.

So yesterday, after screaming several times while the gynecologist was trying hard to remove the damned thing, each time without the slightest hint of success, I finally had to settle with cramps up to my throat and with a half a smile on her face, while she was making her conclusive comment: 

"I am sorry to have to tell you this, but another option could be to take you up to the 8th floor to have it removed in the surgery while you are asleep. Sorry, but I don't know what else to do". On that same day, I had just finished reading a list of horror stories, written by women, on this particular worse case scenario.

And then... they say that women are equal to men?