Finding the ‘And’

Society loves to label a woman- beautiful, ugly or smart, slut, mother, sister or daughter! Society loves when women are inside their shells. They don’t like when they step out. A woman is expected to be what others think they should be, not what they actually are. They are expected to be a lot of things but that lot of things does not include ‘being themselves’. The box that confines them isn’t expected to be broken, it might be an explosion that would lead the Patriarchy to an end or shatter it completely. They can’t take that risk!

A woman is not judged by what they can or what they want to become, they can only pass the acid test if they are considered a good listener, they should obey the norms. That is what they are supposed to do! But, what if they refuse to be enchained or inveigh against the society? What if they rebuff and say ‘NO’ to all the labels they are given? What if they choose ‘ANDs’ instead of ‘Ors’ and ‘Ifs’?

The society has detained the womankind with the ‘ORs’. A woman can be a mother OR a businesswoman, a decent girl OR an adventure-lover, a teacher OR a fun-lover, beautiful OR smart and so on. What if the women replace all the ORs with ANDs? It’s the time we start doing that. We are not meant to be controlled, nobody can draw a limit for us. We are beyond it, beyond the so called notion of ‘decent lady’ or ‘marriage material’. We are not born to make ourselves perfect and practice the ‘good girl’ image for our future husbands and in-laws. We are born to be ‘us’, a unique individual, distinct from others. We are not meant to carry the tags ‘society’ has put on us, unlike the breads and vegetables in the market. We are alive, we are beings, and we are the origin of anything beautiful. We are mothers, we have the power to nurture a baby within us for months, and thus we have everything that can prove our strength and determination. Then why live within the boundaries of ORs? Not everyone has it but us. So, use your ANDs and stand apart from the conventions.