Being
a woman in this era is hard, being a feminist is harder, and being a strong one
is way harder. First and foremost, I would like to discuss
this from my own perspective, as an Arab, Muslim, Egyptian, 21 year-old
woman, and from my point of view I can say that women are not appreciated
enough in this era, and the weird phenomena would be that they are not appreciated
enough by also women, and of course men, but from the way I’ve been seeing it,
mostly women!!
So
here I am a woman having a conversation with a group of women including a man
between them, about women’s rights and how she should be treated and boom, here
comes the surprise, I am being attacked by the women before the man!! Or in
another situation, i am asked the usual question among girls which is “How is
your dream man look like?” and here I am responding it with what I truly feel
saying this and that and he is not supposed to be like this and that, and boom
out of nowhere one of the girls say: “calm down ?!! What has gone into you? ” Or
“here comes Sawsan the feminist” like I was coming from mars!! Or i suddenly
look like an alien!! Or for another example, I found a ton of girls posting on their Facebook accounts their one and only goal in life which is
finding a husband!!!! And my immediate response is what?!!! As if there is
nothing in any woman’s life but getting a husband to guard her!!!
These
girls and I prefer to use the word “girls” not women, are their own enemies,
their first goal in life is having a husband, their second one is having a nice
house and the third one is having kids!! And um not saying that these are not
among my wishes in life, but these definitely are not my goals in life, neither
being my first ones!!
A
woman is a strong creature, she is like iron, she is not supposed to break
under pressure, she is independent, intelligent, successful, has her own
principles, beautiful in her own way, she is a leader, not a follower, and I
have seen a lot of women like that, firstly, my mom, let me tell you, she is my
raw model in life, and I wish to be like her, secondly, millions of very
beautiful and successful women like a poor African American woman who has
protected her kids from joining a gang until they went straight up to
college, or a divorced woman that has bringing up her kids and teaching them
and leading them in life to the path of greatness, or a widowed woman, like my
mom, who has struggled bringing up her two girls in every single day and she
still does, all of these are super women like Alicia keys said, and these women
are the women who a woman like me should look up to, they are all single and I
insisted on bringing up them into this article, cause i believe with all my
soul that safety and security are not provided by men only. Or on the other
hand, women like my beloved Oprah Winfrey; she is a real raw model.
These
women have formed my perspective of how women should be, and um not gonna
apologize for it because of some trivial girls who wish to have goals in life
other than having a husband, but they don’t know how!! These girls are pathetic
in my opinion, because if you don’t know how to be strong, then don’t interrupt
other ones who are trying to be, rather than trying to be so too, because it is
not rocket science, but shamefully, they prefer to live in the shadow of a man.
And
now for the men, most of the real men I have met during my life have respected
me, but most of them have also been intimidated by me too, and this is so
strange, cause unfortunately, as you know men are brought up by women, and when
most of women think that a woman should not powerfully speak up her mind, or
stands for her rights as having her own career side by side to having a family
life, and she can’t succeed doing both of them, or that women should have men
by their side to live safely and to be beloved, and by that and only that she
would be considered successful even if she is the head of the state, all of
that ideology mess will bring up a strange, weirdo guy to the society!! When
one of my guy colleagues stand up in front of the whole class and say: “I think
that Chinese women are better than Egyptian women, are more beautiful,
wealthier…etc.” all of us were insulted by what he said, and in another
conversation with the same guy, he refuses to be married to a strong woman,
cause she will over power him, in that moment I said to myself “hold on, men
are crazy and schizophrenic!!” cause we all know how any Chinese wife is like,
she is strong and independent, and powerful; and when our colleagues like to
crack a joke about Chinese wives, they say they beat up their husbands!! So all
of that is just strange, all of young women like myself are caught up in this
mess, I know that!!
In
our society, and I am ashamed to say that, all of the following cases had
happened; a man rejects a woman he likes, cause his mom didn’t like how
talkative and outgoing that young lady was; a man couldn’t marry the woman he
likes cause his mom didn’t approve her cause she is two years older than him; I
have heard a divorced woman says: “I am ashamed of being divorced” and she is a
doctor, and she is divorced because it didn’t work out between her and her
ex-husband and etc.!!
I am
not saying that our society is only full of tragedies like that, but it is so
hard to live your life the way you want, without any one judging you as a
freak, or as an odd phenomena who rather spends her life alone than being
married to a man who abuses her and her children cause the society can’t embrace
divorced women properly!! But I am declaring my own point of view, I have
always said that I will not bow to a man or crawl over my knees for him neither,
and I have always said that a man doesn’t own my heart, he just belongs to a
part of it, and I am not a freak of nature, I just respect myself, and I know
what a woman deserves from a man, from a society, and that is what our religion
taught us, but most of the men shamefully have their own interpretations of
women’s rights in Islam. But I will stay the way I am, I will not change so as
to be embraced by all of the society, I am thrilled by the small community
around me that embraces me for being me.
Once
I have read a lovely quote says: “a woman brought you into this world, so you have
no right to disrespect one”, said Tupac.
To all of the young ladies out there, love yourselves
as you are and feel good about you, you are beautiful, intelligent, confident,
you don’t need a man to tell you that to believe it, you have to believe it for
any man to believe it about you, and to love you and mostly important to
respect you, you don’t need whitening creams to look more beautiful, neither do
you need plastic surgeries!! I have been asked “if you get to change something
about the way you look what do you get to change?”, and I proudly said “nothing”,
cause I have embraced myself ages ago, except for losing a couple of pounds for
my own health, and the moment I did embrace
myself the way Allah created me, the more I had more confidence in myself, the
more I respected myself, and the more I focused on my mind, my ideology in life
and my career and the more I succeeded in life. The bottom line I love me as it
is, and all of you should do it too, because I feel like I own the whole world.
♥
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