Women face so many challenges that are unique to our gender. Men face challenges too but many of them are shared by our gender. For example, carrying the financial burden of a family, society charges men with, can be shared by the woman of the house...besides there are so many single mothers out there who carry the budgets of their families on their shoulders. Others are from single-income homes where the man of the house is retired, unemployed, disabled, mentally ill or just plain lazy.
Giving birth is one experience that men have never shared with women. Sure, at the rate at which things are moving (like Caitlyn Jenner becoming the face of a make-up line), men may one day be able to experience labour pains but it's yet to happen naturally.
So when a young girl starts to have her monthly period and she has no money to buy sanitary pads – or perhaps she doesn't have the support and knowledge that she needs to know what to do – then would you say that she has equal opportunity as her classmate, a boy? He has the freedom to stand up, walk, run, dress and play as he pleases. No, not the freedom. The privilege.
When a fellow mother, Maryanne Wanyama of Mummytales, shared a certain story on her website, it got me thinking and thinking hard. Arunachalam Muruganantham, nicknamed India's Menstruation Man, knows what it's like to walk around in a body that is constantly shedding blood. You see, this man discovered, to his horror, that his wife had been, for years, using dirty rags as her sanitary pads. He then set out to create the best possible pad using the cheapest materials.
His journey involved wearing a rubber bladder full of animal blood, ridicule from his neighbours and rejection by the same wife he was trying to help. But his suffering paid off and today, he makes machines that produce affordable sanitary pads for women all over the world.
Sometimes all it takes is literally walking in someone's shoes to understand what their needs are. If you are an entrepreneur, have you walked in your customers' shoes? Do you know what it feels like to be them? Perhaps you should try those shoes on right now.