Wanted for Employment

QUALIFICATIONS:
Female
Single
Not over 25 years old
At least 5 feet 3 inches tall
With pleasing personality

FEMALE - Of course! She’s the front-liner. Her feminine wiles are supposed to bring in more clients. She’s the one hunter in this world who uses herself as the bait.

SINGLE - Sure! She’s going on dinner dates with clients to seal important business deals, work with bosses who demand her presence to the minutest detail of a business transaction, has to spend overtimes and overnights on urgent official matters, is on call 24 hours a day – 7 days a week, as the office need (or the bosses need) arises! What more – there are no maternity leaves, no absences or under-times to deal with due to kids getting sick or having trouble in school, or due to jealous or philandering husbands, pestering in-laws… and so on…. In short, single is available, office hours or not.

AT LEAST 5 FEET 3 INCHES TALL - Dear me!!! What could have made my grandma marry a despicable aborigine! I’m standing on 4 feet 5 inches of native dignity. Could 9-inch made-to-order clogs qualify me, please? What does one do in her employment, I wonder … write on ceilings, talk to attics, paint cobwebs, catch lizards, cling to heights … or something?

NOT OVER 25 YEARS OLD – Goodness gracious!!! I had to stop schooling for 4 years in high school in favor of the family’s firstborn whose college education was top priority – a boy groomed to be the provider. It took me 7 years to finish college since I had to fend for myself and pursue education as a working student. My elder brother eloped with his classmate after squandering my father's hard-earned income at my expense during his sophomore year, and returned home with more mouths to feed. So now I’m 31 and a fresh graduate. Where do you think you’d find me?

WITH PLEASING PERSONALITY – Wow!!! I got that! I got my hair highlighted to half the rainbow’s colors to conceal my age a bit! I got my eyebrows plucked and tattooed! I got myself bleached! I got my face stretched and my nose lifted. I do wish I could afford that liposuction surgery, of course! My nephew’s friends figured he has a bitch-witch aunt. My grandpa sings the Christmas carols in mid-April as he sees lanterns dangling on my ears, fingers, neck, wrist …. I don’t mind them, of course! Both my nephew and my grandpa don’t belong to my generation. It’s the trend – or I won’t be “in”. Beauty tips and consultants abound, the toast of the femme fatales – in all their ads of emotional blackmail! As if landing a good job and getting a promotion is the monopoly of the one who has perfect physical statistics.

And now comes the big problem! How in heaven’s name do I put on a movie star smile and a poise resolve with a thickly made-up face, a swollen nose, a thinly scrubbed skin, and practically all of me aching out and threatening to betray my pleasing looks and trendy glamor any moment? Oh, no bother! I guess I’d either be some kind of a wall décor or a flower vase in the office, anyway. Or what have I to be a pleasing sight for?

Fathers, husbands, brothers, sons …please be there when we fall short of the society’s standards and demands, will you? It might not be easy to get by, you know?

Precious men and boys of our lives …. If your decisions and demands prove to be a burden to us – the other half of humanity … where do you think this world is headed for?