Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
This poem on women's lives examines the many ways in which women's spirits are subdued - right from girlhood.
This poem on women’s lives examines the many ways in which women’s spirits are subdued – right from girlhood.
Being a girl child kills joy.
She cannot run wild
Shrieking, jumping, let fly
Mother is always there to admonish
To add layers of guilt and varnish.
After all the girl child
Has to grow into a graceful lady –
The peak of the malady.
Being a girl kills joy.
She cannot dress and study
As she might
Because most of the apparels
And careers are for her not right.
Consciously her parents groom her
For taking her secondary place
Beside a husband,
Who displaces the parents
As authority to tend her
Or, is it to bend her?
Her frustrations she has to contain,
Outwardly poise she has to maintain,
After all she is emerging as a graceful lady –
The crest of the malady.
Being a woman kills joy.
If home constitutes hundred per cent
Seventy per cent towards her is leant.
While bearing, rearing children
Additional salary she must earn.
For twenty four hours she is on call
No relaxing!
Monotonous, unending, repetitive
Self-negating, her strength taxing
The housework continues.
Faint at heart (no upsetting the applecart),
The mother wound unheeded,
The gendered division of labour
This graceful lady does not challenge
Because it may shake the only bastion of her security
The family.
No ally she has,
Rather she becomes an ally
When she grows her daughter.
‘Don’t answer back’ (Even if you’re right!)
‘Give him, give in’ (Don’t fight!)
‘Serve others first’ (Be the last to take!)
Be self-effacing – the same hackneyed remake.
My mother did it, staying at home
Wearing a sari, with her head covered.
I’m doing it, while fetching a pay packet
With my pallu unfurled.
My daughter will do it
Wearing jeans with her hair arranged in curls.
The garbs change, characters change
The stage and story remain the same.
The heroine is a graceful lady –
(The crescendo of the melody?)
The crux of the malady
A woman is a kill-joy.
Pic used under a CC license credit Edward Rhys
read more...
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
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.
Please enter your email address