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"I found my power because I was a girl," says Kirthi Jayakumar, despite being told as a girl what she couldn't do. Because she questioned all those stereotypes.
“I found my power because I was a girl,” says Kirthi Jayakumar, despite being told as a girl what she couldn’t do. Because she questioned all those stereotypes.
The Indian girl child is told often enough that she doesn’t deserve better. That she’s nothing more than a womb. That she can’t possibly ask for more. Yet, women refuse to give up on the dream of equality, of seizing their place in the sun. Starting 6th October 2018, as part of the conversations we have at Women’s Web for the International Day of the Girl Child on 11th October, we present a special series in which a few of our best authors write about #GirlPower. Some write from their own experience as girls, some about the significant girls in their lives, and some even to future daughters – a rich tapestry of emotions that is woven with love, bravery, inspiration, hope, fear, pain, and so much more.
“Oh you can’t this, you’re a girl!” is something all of us are told growing up. As if it needs a Y chromosome to do all the things we’re told not to do. Kirthi Jayakumar challenges this in her poem, saying that she found her power because she was a girl!
I realized my power as a girl when I played just as well as the boys in my class and everywhere else
I realized my power as a girl when I held my own when they said I shouldn’t wear shorts or play out in the sun
I realized my power as a girl when I questioned all things that divide us: caste colour, and religion
I realized my power as a girl not when marketing gimmicks told me I was powerful despite being a girl, but when I found my power because I was a girl.
Read all the #GirlPower posts in this series here.
Image source: shutterstock
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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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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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