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This poem asks men why red is a bad colour, why the ordinary act of being a woman is such a crime.
Dear men,
I was told that, as women bleeding every month, we were supposed
to stay locked away, in cold, dark rooms, because you opposed
our impure existence.
Asking you to buy us sanitary napkins or even tampons was considered
to be something not to be spoken about,
Our voices silenced,shadows diminished,in the crowd.
“Is it a crime to bleed out womanhood?”, my grandmother asked,
And her grandfather said no more,
Asked his grand daughter to leave home, showed her the door.
Just because she bled, her things were left untouched,
her presence ‘unsacred’, burning a part of her soul,
Red, is not a bad colour.
A thinly disguised line between misogyny and empowerment,
The stereotypical predicament.
I grew up listening to code words, phrases I didn’t understand,
Banning even uttering the term menstruation, and yet, empowerment was on demand.
That red, that they considered unsacred, unholy,
a contributor, to this bitter melancholy,
Nobody made any sense to me,
Not even the wise.
For they thought, women bleeding were sluts in disguise;
that red, is what they throw around, during holi,
that red, constitutes their Rangoli,
back home.
He held my hand, looked me in the eyes,
and asked me, ”Are you okay?”
A world,
where they don’t question our presence, but our virginity,
They worship the Holy Bible and his brothers, but not the divinity,
where women are objectified, personified,
to the extent of qualifying as ‘non-living’, in this dictionary.
They burned down Sati, in the yellowed pages of that ancient book,
But today, when a husband kills himself, women(us), are held by the hook,
And asked to destroy themselves (ourselves),
for things they, (we) didn’t do.
Just because that working executive steps out at two,
You ban her the privileges,
impose the curfew.
Who said anything about equality?
Was it me, because it was definitely not you,
Your hands that reached out,
and drew red lines across her face,
what’s funny, is that despite all of that,
we promote marital rape.
And yet, red is not a bad colour?
Criss cross,
the straps of her feet that bind her to not just the ground,
but the dampness of your narrowmindedness.
Hands on her mouth, muffling the screams,
sending across shivers down her spine,
Your timely resurgence, as she moans,
the moans that are mistaken,
for groans of solid pain.
Permission, you don’t ask,
because asking her if she is okay, is an uphill task.
You shatter her, with every breath,
that you exhale, onto her bare neck,
that lies bound to a noose,
the noose of sexism. Dear men,
I ask, she asks,
of nothing more than that,
her safety, your fidelity,
she doesn’t want you to be that man,
penetrating her without consent,
because she’s entitled to what she has,
and you are, with permission.
do not treat our title, as your stereotype,
and shut us down.
Do not unman yourself, just to satisfy,
your privilege, and destroy our hymen.
Our rights matter too, embrace our presence
First published at author’s blog
Image via Unsplash
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This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
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A nature lover, Usha Rajagopalan set up a trust called the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT) in June 2010.
While there is a glint of adventure in her eyes and a chuckle in her voice, there is also an unshakeable determination to achieve her goals which, she says, she has had from her college days. That’s Usha Rajagopalan, well-known Bengaluru-based author.
But these days her writing has taken a backseat as lake conservation has become her passion. The 67-year-old spirited senior citizen has made it her life’s mission to save the Puttenahalli Puttakare lake near her home.
Usha Rajagopalan likes calling herself a “lakeika” – a lake activist and a writer (‘lekhika’ in Hindi). “I am a writer by choice and lake conservationist by chance,” she says with a smile. Creative writing has always been a passion and she has published several books.
How come a man working 9 to 5 "comes home tired" but a woman coming back home after work is expected to do the household chores, manage the children and other stuff too?
I came across this line recently in a Tanishq advertisement (ad) and it immediately caught my attention. The ad basically demonstrates a woman as “superwoman” as she does all the professional and personal work simultaneously, she manages the social circles along with the family, she manages everything with a smile. The actual twist comes at the end when the same superwoman says that before a superwoman, I am a human first; I get tired also, I fail also and at times I am helpless too.
I feel all working women will relate to the subject line. We women are expected to be superwomen, but we are normal humans. How come a man working 9 to 5 comes home tired but a woman coming back home after work is expected to do the household chores, manage the children and other stuff too?
There is a beautiful video shared by Jaya Kishori Ji, a motivational and spiritual speaker, wherein she says, “ki hum chahte hain hamari betiyan chaand par jayein par jaane se pehle 4 paranthe or 2 cup chai banakar jaaye (we wish for our daughters to go to moon, but before going we want them to cook 4 paranthas and 2 cups of chai),” why this is so? Why are the expectations so different?
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