My girl friends are often surprised when they find out that Ming does house work. He mops the floor, he irons his own shirts. When my clothes are ruined (happens surprisingly often, because I’m clumsy), he knows how to mend them.
You should hear the excitement in his voice when he talks about vacuum cleaners and refrigerators.
Today, he decided that since I’ve been ill, he would make a herbal tea. Butterfly pea, red dates and goji berries, I wouldn’t even have known what to start doing.
When we do face masks at home, it’s because Ming decides he wants to. And then he has to put the mask on my face as well (because I don’t know how to).
He laughs good-naturedly when I call him “my wife”.
And I wonder, who put all these gender roles into place. Who decided that a person has to do such and such a thing to be considered a man or a woman?
Why do we let society dictate what a man or a woman is “supposed” to be or do?
Ming has been asked if he is a “real man”. (A question he didn’t even deign to answer.) I’ve been asked if I’m sure he’s straight.
When it comes to love, does all this really matter?
