You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
These lines from Maya Angelou’s poem ‘Still I Rise,’ reminds me of a sad stage that every woman faces even today. Our so-called ‘developed and modernized world’ still cannot recognize the importance of treating a woman as an equal. Being born as a woman makes life more a survival story than a memorable one. One of the most powerful poems that I have ever come across is Sarah Kay’s ‘If I Should Have a Daughter.’ The last line of the poem says, “Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you handouts on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.” This line makes it clear that people are never going to treat women as equal. As a girl in a ‘man’s world,’ it makes me tremble with fear when I think about my future. Am I allowed to have a future? Why do I need to be so strong that I need to fight the entire world to do something that anyone could easily do? The answer to these questions is just simple, a woman is much stronger than people estimate us to be. We have the power to give birth. We can make the best of chefs, actors, dancers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and can choose whatever we want to be because ultimately life is going to be tough. The world isn’t going to change. No matter how many waves of feminism arise, the world is just going to continue criticizing women. Can I do anything about it? maybe or maybe not. But I know for a fact that I have dreams and I have every right in this world to achieve it. I know I have the strength and capability to march towards my goals and I have the power to discriminate between right and wrong. A recent article that spread like wildfire all over the internet was a letter by a male engineering student explaining why his female classmates aren’t his equals. This letter proves that sexism still exists on very small levels.
People may or may not change things but it only makes women stronger by the day.
“Storms make trees take deeper roots.” – Dolly Parton