Human rights are women's rights and women’s rights are human rights.
Dear Juliets,
Take a beautiful piece of paper
And write yourself a love letter
Be your own valentine
Love yourself to the extent
That you can be your own
Sunlight
Shade
Water
Air
Because you, dear Juliets Dear Romeo-deprived-Juliets Are the rarest And most unique And most admired flower That ever bloomed Because you are your own Juliet rose.
A tiny little flower,
A tiny little creature
It was a beautiful flower
Beautiful,
But perhaps, not ‘pretty’
Faces showcase prettiness,
And not beauty,
So she felt like hiding her face
Because the queen of the night
Is pitch black
I saw it bloom,
And I saw it wilt,
Because I watched it grow
And so I said to her,
“Don’t you crumble just yet,
Even wilting is a part of growing”
And these flowers,
Such a mysterious thing
Roses have thorns
And the queen of the night
Is pitch black
But a black flower
Is the most beautiful flower
And even the queen of the night
Requires the full sun to grow
“Let a little sunshine in,
Perhaps, you will find angels,
Waiting for you
Waiting to admire you.”
Because even the darkest flower
Is the queen of the night.
Here’s a story for you.
Mother Goose sounds so familiar and wise
Pretty little stories with pretty little lies,
Delightful as long as it’s Humpty Dumpty
Or Diddle Diddle
Or Jack and Jill
But a little trouble when Georgy Porgy goes up the hill.
You see
He was a little too tricksy,
And girls must beware of such a guy
Why?
Because “Georgy Porgy, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry”.
Perhaps Mother Goose should’ve taught to dignify
Instead of sketching pretty little stories and pretty little lies
Perhaps we should feed the kids
A little more equality
Instead of singing melodies of the bad guy
Night after night, for a lullaby.
You see
Girls do not drown in woeful apologies
And yet, kindergarten taught us the old school lie
Why?
Because “Georgy Porgy, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry”.
Upskirting is an offense the youth often commits, and/or falls prey to. In most countries, it is not even identified to be a legal offense. Fortunately, with the campaigns coming up, many actions are being taken to criminalise upskirting. Yet, we must also tackle this at the grassroot level. And the key step for that is to stand up for yourself.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54370087
Attached here are a few news articles of rape cases in past few weeks. Our country is seeing an unimaginable surge in the rape cases in the present times. While the lockdown may seem to have aggravated the situation to some extent, giving a pool of deserted streets to a seemingly huge bunch of attackers, we need the root cause to be identified and uprooted.
It is no longer just women who are victims of this brutality. In fact, the line between the culprits and the victims is not really based on their gender. It is, quite simply, based on the distinction of the weak and the strong. As opposed to our ‘common sense’ though, it is the victim who holds the stronger position.
Excuse me for taking this on a deeper tangent. One who rapes wishes to infiltrate into another’s being. One who rapes is not aware of self-sufficiency. One who rapes is too weak to understand that brutality does not equalise satisfaction, or revenge, even.
Who would want to be a weak, self-deficient creature?
I lived a long life
I lived through some people
And I met some people
In search of beauty
I travelled with them
On that long pilgrimage
I clung to the hope
Masked in sheaths of despair
I trailed lands long
I scanned each single face
I immersed myself in the appearances
But came out without any trace
Yet, on the last day of our journey
Up spoke a voice inside of me
You search for a thing
That eludes all humanity
How ironic is it that
You won’t find it in the colour of my skin
You won’t find it in my weight
Neither in the locks of my hair
Nor in the marks I am gifted with
Still if you wish
To look beyond
Seep through the soul
Read the minds
And devour the hearts
You will hear a voice
Sweeter than a nightingale’s melody
You will see a light
Brighter than the sun and the moon
And that is when
Your holy pilgrimage
Shall finally end.
We often turn a blind eye to the little things: the little things that make us ‘us’ and the little things that the world unconsciously takes away from us. Each person has aspects imperative to himself/herself, and we must keep those alive. The definition of beauty is not universal, it is personal. And to uphold your own definition of beauty is to be truly beautiful.
In the recent report published by the UNESCO, textbooks have been shown to exhibit ‘covert gender bias’. Women are expressed as passive citizens in an inconspicuous way. Most of us tend to ignore the little things, such as portraying women in the stereotypical professions (fashion, food etc.) and men in police, science etc. This affects men and women alike. The ideals of the society are corrupted and at the same time, the morale of those working in the traditionally unacceptable professions are disturbed. Policewomen, female athletes, male nurses and chefs are still denied the appreciation and acceptance that they deserve.
The statistics are truly shocking. According to the report, in Spain, the share of female characters was 10 pc in primary school and 13 pc in secondary school textbooks. A study of introductory economics textbooks in the United States found that 18 pc of characters mentioned were female, mostly portrayed in relation to food, fashion or entertainment. In Afghanistan, women were almost absent from grade 1 textbooks published in the 1990s. A Malaysian primary school textbook suggested that girls risked being shamed and ostracized unless they protected their modesty. Thankfully, India has fared quite well in this and shows little gender bias in the textbooks. The report appreciates the revision of many textbook images by the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research in 2019 to remove gender stereotypes.
We have come a long way in tackling covert and overt gender bias, but there is a long way ahead. There are several unjust gender stereotypes still observed in our country. Several other countries have yet to achieve the minimum level for providing a just life to women. No country can yet call itself free from this pest of gender bias. Together, however, all nations can call themselves free in a true sense. And all men and women can, too.
I try, and I try, I try to fight back In the hope that it won’t happen, I try to axe the anguish In the hope that indifference leads to tolerance, I try to veil the memory In the hope of feeling that it is unreal But I feel down, all the same, So I try to voice my ire In the hope that someone will hear The cry of my soul. And as I do that, I find a hundred hands to hold, A hundred shoulders to weep on, A hundred faces to wipe, A hundred who bear the same cry As that of my soul.
I’ll share a personal experience to demonstrate a widely and inconspicuously practised form of mistreatment, which, very often is passed on as a ‘tradition’. On a trip with my family-both close and extended- we were dining at a restaurant. We were seated in its heart, at a long table. There was a loud chatter throughout the length of it, which reverberated in the entire room. We were nearly finished with our meal when I noticed, from the corner of my eye, a family enter. They bore the aura of traditionally-influential-old-school people. They sat at another table, with the patriarchal old man sitting at the head seat; no one sat across him. There was an old woman, supposedly his wife, two young men and 2 newly-wed women. All the 3 women had their faces veiled.
It hadn’t caught my eye, but my sister-in-law, also newly-wed, nudged me to look at the 2 women who’d been watching her laughing heartily in front of her in-laws, a practice scoffed at by orthodox principle. The others: all the 3 men looked at her behaviour contemptuously whereas there is absolutely nothing to say of the old lady, as her face was completely hidden. The 2 young women, though, looked at us with an amused, yet longing smile. To add to the annoyance and contempt of theirs, there were the roars of laughter and dissent, both arising from our table. I remember catching sight of the older-looking brother get up and complain when we were just waiting for the finger bowls.
We got kicked out of the restaurant that day. Not as much as kicked out as much as being softly asked to ‘proceed’, since we had, in theory, finished our meal. But that was not what hurt me. What shook me the most was the silent, wistful smile on the faces of the two young women who, as young girls, must have dreamed of getting to live in an atmosphere where they have a right to choose, and a right to express. Even as a child, I felt grateful for living with those who love and respect their sons, daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law equally.
We turn a blind eye to the women with concealed and wistful and yearning smiles. No lifestyle is ideal for all, but to respect the wishes of others is called equality. And as long as the faces are veiled, and the mouths zipped, we are only striving for equality, not striding towards it.
TheFemininePost