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Fear, shame, prejudice - all comes the way of a girl from the moment she is born, changing form only to suit the stage of life she's at. But despite it all, she survives, thrives. How?
Fear, shame, prejudice – all comes the way of a girl from the moment she is born, changing form only to suit the stage of life she’s at. But despite it all, she survives, thrives. How?
The first fear at being conceived A girl they would not want The goddess worshippers who seek Only sons as progeny
The second fear at being born Will I survive the neglect and scorn? The birth they don’t celebrate But secretly mourn
The next fear every step of a girl life Being treated as less, unequal and frail The constant weighing of my being On a prejudiced scale
The trickle of blood down my legs Is isolation, humiliation and fear at best? No longer sacred, I am now impure They say so, I am not sure
Is my body then just a contested space? Their honour and shame In a vagina they so hate? The body they touch The soul they fail to embrace
The next threshold, a pedestal actually Of producing their children Sons ideally and abysmally The pedestal is a prison A cage factually
Fear ridden is the fate of a girl The fear of being Of self, of world Of being a body That can be used and mauled Of bringing “shame” And “honour” to uphold?
And then I wonder If I am frail How is it that over all the fears I prevail?
I do not fit into frames any more I redefine identity Carving wings from adversity I soar
So now I am fearless As fearless one can ever be Because I speak of feminism And equality But I do not adhere to what Beauvoir said My gender won’t be my destiny!
Editor’s note: This story had been shortlisted for the June 2018 Muse of the Month, but not among the top 5 winners.
Image source: By Ilya Mauter [CC BY 3.0 ], from Wikimedia Commons
Pooja Priyamvada is an author, columnist, translator, online content & Social Media consultant, and poet. An awarded bi-lingual blogger she is a trained psychological/mental health first aider, mindfulness & grief facilitator, emotional wellness trainer, reflective read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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