Dear Dad, Why Didn’t You Teach Me to Speak Up?

Girls are taught not to speak up, so that they can be ‘good girls’. This has more far reaching and horrifying consequences than their parents can ever imagine!

“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued!” –– Aung Sang Suu Kyi

A society where women are really valued is still a distant dream. The average Indian woman is generally infused with that ‘give in to situations’ kind of education all through her upbringing, sometimes in a subtle way and at times with a commanding set of instructions.

Here’s a daughter who questions her father as to why she wasn’t taught to take a stand even when she kept bearing the onslaught, merely for the sake of saving her marriage and the fear of social stigma.

It’s high time we teach our daughters to voice the injustice with the loudest roar.

Dear dad

My world may appear to you just fine
But your angel smiles no more
And today I gather the courage to unravel
The persistent onslaught that I bore

I was beaten & bruised
And commanded to bow down
To save the sanctity of this
Pious bond called ‘marriage’
Not once did I dare to frown

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I was threatened & thwarted
All I did was dwelled in silence
‘Hey you are a woman
It is but your fate’
Was my only piece of condolence

I kept quiet
For the sake of my children
I kept quiet coz I had nowhere to go
Carried the burden of being a woman
Taking every single blow

I carried on the fallacy
That a daughter should drag on being unloved
Not to complain & condemn
But adjust in all the circumstances
That she is grievously perturbed

All this while I kept condoning
And let them torment

Dad
I wish you had raised me
To fearlessly express the slightest of dissent

I wish you had taught me
To defend & defy
Not to sulk in quietude
And self- pacify

I ask you
Haven’t you risen generations of feeble mind
Norms’ adhering cows?
Only to keep the foundations of patriarchy intact
Ensnaring us into those decrepit womanly woes?

But I no more wish
To weave the yarns of suffering & pain
It’s me who has to face them once for all
And let the plethora of agony drain

Yes its time I stop sobbing
Be upfront & sure
It’s time I renounce ‘their’ unjust ways

And finally say
No more! No more!

Image source: shutterstock

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