Let Me Tell You About A Million Indian Women; One Of Them Could Be You

We’re all different, and yet, we all face similar issues, in maybe different ways. But we are all Indian women, fighting the same enemy – patriarchy.

You see hundreds of women everyday. Online and real. Different names. Different personalities. Different upbringing. Different indentities . Different work life. Different household. Different struggles.

We had grandmothers who were privileged and were able to get education. We had grandmothers who were married off at 15 and were bringing up 4 kids by 20. Women who worked at construction sites, women who worked at cotton plantations. Women who worked in corporates and others who were homemakers. Women who never get promoted much because “motherhood is your first duty” and home makers whose unpaid labour is holding the economy together, still being questioned what they do all day.

Women who have been abused and belittled in a relationship, who can never say how they feel about that man, who pick on their skin everyday. Women who are too fair. Women who are too dark. Women who should “smile a little more”. Women who would “look pretty with a little less fat”. Women with PCOD, women struggling with postpartum fat.

Women who’ve gotten married early, who are getting pushed into it daily, who are getting rejected daily, who are struggling with infertility, who are struggling with their new born.

The woman who has had her hijab questioned, who has had her non hijabi lifestyle questioned, who is told she can’t be a doctor, who is then reminded that she is an unmarried doctor.

Women who are struggling to get to work everyday ’cause that man from the station is following her. He may be a stalker, it may be a coincidence, she is taking longer routes and leaving early to find out, getting catcalled at bus stops for wearing shorts, not creating a scene by taking a rickshaw instead, creating a scene at the risk of getting molested next time.

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Women staying long nights at work, calling uber/ola with pepper spray at quick reach, calling home while being driven and making them note down the car number in case she doesn’t make it home.

Staying long nights at work and walking to the car in the parking lot with keys in between fingers, checking the back seat before getting in.
Staying long nights at work, making that promotion, men colleagues saying they would have had that promotion too if they were women.

Women not sitting in bus aisle seats cause men rub their thighs against our arms, not standing cause they rub themselves against you because it’s an empty ‘crowded bus’. A woman who commuted like this getting home and wanting to shower, husband reminds her she is late for making dinner.

Women who keep anger aside when dowry is discussed, women who get angry and are called crazy for saying no to dowry.

Women in markerting, women in sales, women for reception jobs, women at banks, women who sell fish, women who pick garbage from side walks, women who roam houses to clean and make food, women who come back home and then clean and make food.

Women who can cook, women who can’t cook, women with sexual lives, women without sexual lives, women struggling with their sexuality.

Women raped by husbands, women invalidating fellow women’s marital rapes, girls raped by members from family, girls asked to keep quiet about it.

Women who question each other’s choices, women who victim blame other women, women who are jealous of other women.

Women who are sex workers because they were picked off the railway station at 11 years of age, women who are called sluts because that is way too much cleavage for a party.

Women driving buses, women flying fighter planes, women secretly learning to drive cars, women who drive scooters, women being followed by bikers.

Woman who lost her child, woman whose dead from childbirth, women leaving careers for motherhood, women being ashamed for leaving the baby at home for a career.

Suicidal women, depressed women, women constantly judging themselves, women who save money to buy that expensive lipstick, women who are snickered at for that red lipstick, women who dress differently, women who mismatch clothes, women who put in work to look good, women who read, women who can’t read, women who are religious, women who are atheist.

Women who don’t have a support system, women slitting wrists in bathrooms, women being set on fire for dowry.

Women who marry, women who never marry, women who have boyfriends, women who don’t have boyfriends, who date younger guys, women who date older guys, women who date women, women being women.

Women who are shattering glass ceilings, women who are hit with a glass at dinner tables.

Women who die. Women who survive.

You. Me. Us.

Image source: shutterstock

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