The Incongruent Reality

Step out of the boundaries; break the norms

Yes, I am a girl.  But no, my purpose is not to serve you.  My life should not revolve around you.  Just like you have goals and ambitions that you want to fulfill, so do I.  I, too, want to make my parents proud.  And if given a chance, I would work hard to do so.  But for that to happen, I need a chance.  One chance to prove my worth.   A chance so often taken for granted by you, but so rarely received by us. 

But what will you do?  And anyway, after marriage, you will be busy doing household chores and raising your kids; so what’s the point of wasting resources over you?

Why is it that we hear these rebuttals but not you?  Why are we the ones solely responsible for such obligations and not you?  These conditions themselves are internalized from childhood.  Ever noticed how when little children play, we were dedicated wives who cooked and played with our children, while you were the husbands who went to work to bring home the bread.  These role associations are in no way innate or natural.  We all learn via mimicry; mimicking that which we observe from our surroundings.  So until the cycle is broken, we will keep passing on such ideas about gender roles to the future generations.

You have the power to help us, to break this cycle.  And no, it does not require any resources.  Rather, it requires something much more valuable, an open mind.  Consider being stuck in our situation, being oppressed by a patriarchy which runs deep and efficaciously, bounding us with restraints.  After all, the glass ceiling does not break by itself.  Women empowerment is the hammer with which the very real barrier can be broken.  This glass ceiling that I am speaking about is the reality for most women, even in the Western world.  It often leads to reinforcing your male ego at our expense, whether it be by something like under-paying us for the same job comparatively, or by limiting our chance at a promotion by not giving us the opportunity to show our worth.

It is up to you to accept that we are just as human as you, and that we are just as worthy to be treated with equality.  This pervasive idea of patriarchy can only be eradicated when we all start believing that the idea itself is flawed.  Society is not something abstract; WE make up society.  So with a shift in our views and emerging support towards women empowerment, we CAN bring forth a change to level out the field for everyone.

Unfortunately, many of you will never really understand our situation unless you actually experience life in a matriarchal society.  But, what you can do is perspective-taking at the least to try and understand our difficulties.

So open yourself up to accept the idea of true equality and help us with our purpose.  And that includes not just you, but us as well; all of us, together.

Yes, I am a girl.  And yes, I too deserve equality.