Found this poem in an old diary of mine…17/9/98 (18 years ago)… I dont’ feel the same anymore but I know in many parts of the world, a woman still feels she is in shackles. Invisible but binding making it difficult to survive.
I felt so hollow within me,
No-one however insightful could see,
A deep chasm that’s hard to fill,
Like the Ocean that on the surface is still…
I felt the need of a crutch,
A friend was what I needed so much,
No longer could I cry,
My eyes had run dry…
I felt like a leaf blown away,
There was nothing more that I could say,
There wasn’t anybody who would listen,
I was at the mercy of another’s decision…
My desires, dreams, were not respected,
Nor my need to be understood accepted,
I was expected to follow,
That I could lead, they could not swallow…
I was born but a woman,
To be tossed around by man,
Father, Brother, Husband, whatever the form,
To dominate a woman was the age old norm…
Equality was still a distant dream,
Freedom, Justice, Empowerment just a theme,
Pleasant words like Sunday morning church bells,
As headlines in a newspaper that sells…
Far, far, beyond the horizon,
One day we shall be free and this woe forever gone,
For now, still a long, long way,
Before a Woman sees the break of day…
Many of us have seen the break of day. We mustn’t forget those who have not…for freedom is everybody’s right…
Perhaps the point is this — that women may be shackled by their own thoughts as much as society’s norms.
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I agree with you. Some cultures are more rigid and they confuse women’s rights with culture itself. In India things are slowly changing but still a long way to go.
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“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who’s going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand
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Well said Archana…in many places though women have no courage to put up a fight…because they have never been taught how to.
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