The two ways you can accept any special treatment as a privilege and not a right.

Any special treatment a woman gets (such as not paying for lunch) is a privilege and not a right.

Yes, I am a woman, and I came to this conclusion and I hate having to admit it.

I have always vouched for women and women rights and equality movements. But I came to realize recently that women need to do something to demolish the double standards.

Throughout history, honor is a trait mostly assigned to men. But I don’t believe in double standards.

A female colleague of mine and I were having a work lunch a few days ago with a group of male foreigners. We were ten on the table. When the bill came at the end of our long lunch, I took the bill intending to pay.

They could not bear the shock. What? You? You’re not going to pay. Men pay!

Our male friends think and believe they lavish us – the women – with a favor. If I assert myself I can pay for everyone in the group, I become a pushy or a showy woman. If I refuse for them to pay for my lunch, I become a feminist who hates men.

Where is the day where a woman pays for lunches and it is a normal thing as it is for a man?

Where is the day where a woman does not get glazes from men for doing a normal thing liking paying for lunch?

Do I have to be worried I am coming on too strong every time I eat lunch with my male friends?

I find myself pulling back from asserting myself and I am dead sure men do not worry about coming on too strong. I have been working on personal development with male colleagues and bosses and I have spent time listening to them patiently explaining to me that I never have to pay for our lunches.

Every time I insist on paying for anything we do together, they see me as someone demolishing the balance of the universe.

Or, worse. They see themselves as a man who is not honorable.

I call this a double standard.

Men are not the only ones at fault here. Women are as well. We need to urge our sisters to stop treating men as ATMs.

You and I can accept any special treatment as a privilege and not a right in these two ways:

By earning your worth using your abilities and hard work

If my boss gives me a promotion because I am a woman, honor flies through the window. Honor does not look like that. Not to me. Not to my mom who worked with male tyrants for more than 3o years in the banking industry and did not get the car, the promotion, and the respect she deserved.

I understand your pain, sister.

If anyone deserved her worth, it was my mom. Before she left the banking industry, she worked hard to earn the position of assistant manager in the biggest branch in Addis (capital city of Ethiopia).

Her male bosses had proof of her incredible abilities. Her unique work ethic was testimony enough.

But the one who got a luxurious car, a salary increase, and other ludicrous benefits was her immediate male boss. A boss who did not do a damn thing except order everyone around. A boss who did not earn his worth. A boss who slept in his lavish home in the sweat of his female colleagues.

I understand your pain, sister.

But we don’t correct a wrong thing done to us by doing another wrong thing.

Expecting your boss to give you a promotion while your work has not seen your abilities is wrong. Double standard looks and smells like that. Expecting the world around you to give you what you want when you self-sabotage your work – doing the bare minimum – is unfair. That is a double standard.

My mom will be ashamed of me if I become a woman without honor. That is why I insist on paying for my share at least in lunches and dinners. That is why I do my work to the best of my abilities every day.

You will earn your worth because of the time, energy, and passion you spend on your field.

Be a hard-working woman. And no one can say a word about you hijacking the promotion.

By not being emotionally manipulative

I had a female colleague who manipulated her male colleagues to do everything for her. Like a princess beckoning her prince to abide her, she leashed her arsenal. Her emotions.

She pouted if a male colleague (a one she was close to) did not pay for her coffee or tea. She would stop talking to him. And he would buy her the damn coffee the next day.

As a great saleswoman, she promoted finished houses. But her persuasion ability did not get her the big promotion. Her emotional manipulation did.

If her male boss did not give her monthly bonuses or some sort of benefit, she deliberately stole the life out of her work.

How?

By promoting to 20 people instead of 100 people.

She might as well have put a gun on his head.

Her boss knew how great her communication skills with clients were. I am exhausted. I talk to clients the whole day. Some of them speak to me in a cruel manner. She would say these words to her boss to get sympathy. And he would give her the promotion, the salary increase and the recognition she craved for.

I am a woman and I hated her. I hated her deliberate manipulation of our unique gender as a weapon to get what she wanted.

If we take any special treatment as our right, we create a dangerous standard where women and men do not know how to cross a bleary line.

We must never take what men do for us for granted. But we must also never take what they do for us as our right. This is where it gets blurry.

When a man lets me pass in front of me. When a man pays for my dinner. When a man lets me speak first. When a man opens a door for me. When a man pays for my coffee.

I must see his actions not as my right but as a privilege.

I would rather communicate with my boyfriend to give me what I want instead of pouting for weeks because he forgot my birthday.

I would rather have enough self-awareness in myself instead of waiting for my boyfriend to take his responsibility like taking out the trash or cooking our meal. Withdrawing sex as a weapon for him to do his responsibility is manipulation.

Tell me.

How can we be honorable when we manipulate our loved ones?

You are an honorable woman when you don’t remain silent for weeks because he forgot an important day. You are an honorable woman when you don’t withhold your love because he dared to disagree with you. You are an honorable woman when you insist to pay for your night out. Not just because you can but because it is wrong that men are supposed to pay for us all the damn time.

If you are a woman who sees men paying for everything as a normal thing, that’s not okay. Men must never pay for us because we are women. Our relationship with men beautifies when they pay for us because they want to – not because we expect them to.

Treating men as if it is their prerogative to pay for our lunch dishonors both gender. Nowhere is written where women must wait for a man to reach for his wallet and pay for their meal together.

This whole nonsense must provoke us into recognizing the unfairness and the culture of the double standard that still exists.

Any special treatment a woman gets (such as not paying for lunch) is a privilege and not a right.