A Bird without Wings

I have a topic or an issue in my head that I cannot avoid and the more I think about it the more pissed I get. Let me share my thoughts.

I’m sitting in our garden and I caught myself staring at four beautiful white pigeons. These pigeons are set free once a day and my cousin takes care of them. I wondered how come they don’t fly away and never come back, but then I realized their wings have been cut so that they are not able to fly anymore. Not able to fly anymore?? But they are birds! Isn’t the purpose of their living to fly free?! Aren’t they supposed to be one of the living creatures that should not be put in a cage! The more I looked at those poor birds, the more I started to understand that it’s not only birds that are without their rights, its also us women.

For the couple of months I’ve lived in an area where women are not educated and their only purpose of living is to find a good husband, get married, have kids, clean the house, cook and keep their husband satisfied. There is no talk about their wants and needs. Women here are servants of men. They make breakfast, lunch and dinner but they eat after the men have eaten.

Imagine me. I am more independent than 99% of the women living in this particular area and they say “She isn’t a woman, she is a man” only because I don’t talk and walk like the women here. The worst part for me is to look at these women and not have the power to tell them wake up! Why? Because they won’t listen to me. Their mentality has been like this for ages, from mother to daughter; a chain that cannot be broken.

But what if we stop and think for a moment. What if your daughter gets married to a man that dies tragically in an accident and she isn’t educated enough to get a job, or she has no work experience to even get a job. What happens to her and the kids that are left behind because there isn’t a man to feed them? There are two scenarios for this: either the woman has to go the streets to beg for a living or go back to her parents’ house. And we all know the second one is not an option in most families. So she will start begging to raise her kids, to feed them. What happens to the kids? They won’t have even a single thought of going to school and get a better life than their mom had, because they are too worried for today.

What if your daughter gets married to a man that beats her everyday and she is unhappy for the rest of her life. You ask her “why don’t you just divorce your husband and take the kids?” Her answer would be “How can I? Where would I go? How would I feed my kids?” She is absolutely right. If she isn’t educated or doesn’t have a job, how can she independently raise her kids and manage without a man? She can’t because here a man provides the living and a woman is just a housewife.

What if your daughter gets married to a man that locks her in a room and doesn’t let her see daylight because he is too jealous and is constantly afraid that his wife will cheat on him. Again, she is unhappy and in worst case kills herself –not to even mention how awfully.

Last but not least, what if you purposely let your daughter marry a man that is more than 20 years older than her and she is only 15 years old. After couple of days or months she gets killed brutally by her husband. Now, who to blame: the society, the parents or the husband? What did she do to deserve this kind of a life? What does she know about marriage life or life in general? What’s her purpose of even breathing when her freedom is sold in a blink of an eye? Nothing, she does not have a purpose. She becomes a servant.

These scenarios I explained are just small fractions of what is really happening in our world. This doesn’t happen only in our neighborhood, its happening everywhere in the world. Now I will ask, what will you do if this was your daughter or if this was your life? Personally I don’t even know what to answer because only the topic makes me numb. I feel like I’m dying inside when I see or hear these things. I am helpless in a middle of a black sea.

All of these could be solved if we only let our daughters to see the world, let them breath and taste freedom, let them go to school and educate themselves, let them taste the rebellious life and mostly let them experience the good and the bad so that they learn, so that they know what is life, so that they can teach their daughters to know their value, rights and dignity. So that we all could have our rights to be free, just like those pigeons.

We are like birds, it is our birth right to fly free! So I am asking each and one of you to do your best to break this chain and be the change we all want to see. Start from your mother, your sister, your friends and neighbors. Don’t stay silent and watch them all burn. Set them free and TALK!