Disclaimer: This article was one of the most difficult articles I have written so far. I don't really like challenging myself but this was something that I have experienced, embraced, and witnessed myself. It's just not me but, what many many other women go through at least thrice in their life span. I will try to pen down more emotions than opinions and see where it goes from there.
When a girl child is born, some homes exchange warm hugs and celebrations there are homes dawned in patriarchy that look for another chance. Their life is often more than usual intertwined with care and protection. Trying to save a part of their integrity, sometimes too innocent for us to understand what are we being protected from? Mothers who were once a child are sometimes aware of all the atrocities but let their guard down with a father or a brother, they are family after all? Little do they know that desire is the evil that sees no religion, no relation, no age.
If you are a woman and you are reading this, by now you have a fair hint of what I am indicating. Maybe, you are wondering why am I not explicitly using the terms I am poetically discussing. It's because I was never taught explicitly but protected all throughout my childhood until I wandered to new opportunities and found out the ugly truth through experiences myself.
The soul-shattering experiences that we as women face throughout our lives as if it were just another weekday sometimes make us stronger? I am still searching for an answer to this question. No one accounts for the pain that follows, what is the aftermath of this? Do we complain? or do we just comply? Sometimes we stand up and take that plunge to choose the anger of being violated and, sometimes we freeze.
If we decide to fight back at that moment or not, it changes us regardless. It changes the way we are touched, even by a loved one. We hold our guards even higher, shutting ourselves emotionally or we might just try to not get triggered in any manner possible. This story is even not limited to gender, exploitation comes in all shapes and sizes. I am penning the emotions of merely 49.58% of the world.
What happens if we dress the way we do? Is that deep neck too deep? Is that skirt too short? Was I too friendly to give that indication? Did I have drinks with the wrong people? Did I upset someone with my rejection? I am just 5 years old, what did I do?
I wonder how deep is this immeasurable pain do we ever forget about this? Should we ever forget about this? But what do we do with the lingering memories that pop up with even the slightest of the triggers? Maybe I am looking for my own answers by throwing in my thoughts, for it took a night to understand the difference between being loved and, I should rather not say the word to trigger anyone in my audience.
After consolidating and listening patiently to a few stories, and a few that I read while the world was hashtagging #metoo. There were times I lent shoulders for the strong women I met across various paths in life. I decided to jot down some emotions of how one feels. It's definitely not this simple, as I wrote it today.
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