"I am not a person, I am a story"
I am a single child. Ya, ya I get it, the image of one pampered, arrogant, and dramatic girl running over your mind. But that’s fine, that’s how the media portrays if a girl is privileged enough as the son. The biggest ultimate value of my purpose began here. People tag me as a feminist and whatever, but I am particularly not a fan of these words before my name. Why is it even made to sound the opposite of men? I wonder. I am speaking about injustice on women but people are abusing me saying that’s not how an ‘’good daughter’’ grows to be. I might not be an ideal daughter for you but I am definitely an ideal daughter of my parents because that’s the parenting I grew up in. Importantly, I am a good human who speaks for injustice. Remember, the one who stays silent even amidst injustice is the biggest sinner. My opinions were never suppressed, my interests were entertained, my voice actually mattered, that's where many people consider a single child as spoiled and socially inept. What is it like to be a single child? Well, in rare cases if you ask me then it’s something like being a multi-tasker switching the sides of so-called ‘’men roles’’ and so-called ‘’female roles’’. It’s not a burden to me. It actually became my medicine for personal growth. It became my divine weapon to advocate how capable women are and how we are limiting them. More importantly, amidst all the loneliness, a realization about a mix of fierceness and softness to conquer the societal demands is what I learned. This is not a new thing, we have always been like this since Vedic times but these powers were made vestigial by not letting us exercise it. To be someone of dreams, voice, and values. I have seen women passive in decision-making, many talking about parliament and offices, but today let’s talk about our own home, the home we spent years on. They don’t trust us saying this is a men's talk place, men’s work, you may go and yeah bring some snacks is their concern sentence. So, if I was nurtured in a way it is not a privilege, it’s a right.
Being the single child, on top of that, a granddaughter, of a woman who gave birth to 5 daughters just to bear a son is quite revolutionary in my family tree. My maternal grandmother in immense sorrow would share with me how she was thrashed, harassed, and even deprived of eating as soon as they found out it was a girl again after delivery. If she had compared and voiced on agendas like body autonomy and sexual and reproductive health rights, I would assume people would call her either insane or maniac. That’s why she kept suggesting that my mom should bear at least a son. She keeps worrying about my mother as all her daughters had sons. But why is she worried? I don’t blame her because I love her and I have nothing to blame because she was grown up in times where these were not even a concern. The concern was how to be homely. She was deprived of these important matters, a complete injustice era of emotional literacy to be precise. For them, ignorance was bliss.
My mother is the daughter of a woman who married at the age of 9 and she got married at the age of 27. It’s a normal age standard of marriage today but back then it was a huge deal. She handled all the disgusting words, marriage pressure, and bad looks with grace. I love this woman. I was raised by this woman. A woman who gracefully accepted a girl child as a single child amidst all societal chaos. You might nod in disbelief, but people still today, let alone uneducated even educated people share some unnecessary words such as ‘’kuputri’, ‘’xori vako le swarga jane nadi tardainan’’, ‘’bansha narahane vo yo xori bihe garesi’’, and many more which I feel ashamed sharing. They tried so hard to make my father marry another woman in order to bear a son. But they failed. They still try so hard to bring me down now by comparing what a son can do. It initially bothered me, it would crack my head because the pressure to be a son-alike killed me inside. Enough was enough. One day I realized I am not going to be a son-alike, I am a daughter who does unexpected work unlike a stereotypical daughter. IQ level and cranial capacity haven’t done injustice in gender, only approaches are different. And I accept this difference with dignity. I have immense respect for my mother not just because she is my mother but she is also among few women I know, who took charge of her own body, stubbornly kept her sexual and reproductive health right above everyone else’s opinions. She is the lady who broke the stereotype of her family.
While I am talking about the authoritarian power my mother seized on the family, I can’t forget my father who shared this power with her. I have seen my father being equally crushed by the pressure of masculinity. The bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health rights were not even in his hands. He was constantly pressured to be a man and slap his wife if she commits a small mistake. My father grew up in an all-male family in a rural village where giving a certain privilege to women was placing women on his head. He and my mother made a combined decision to be happy with their daughter. He did the cooking, washed utensils, clothes, broughts sanitary pads, something unexpected of his gender role when mom was sick. He was raised in a village where a father-to-son was only a true man, where bearing as multiple children as much as possible was reciprocated as a manly thing. Are men exercising these rights? The answer is still ‘’No’’.
While I am representing women’s rights, I am also representing men’s rights. I don’t want to experience the sufferings that my parents have to go through. Because my father supported my mother’s decision over her conduct and mine too. You know, once my father told me, ‘’Not only sons can flourish the family name, daughters can equally flourish’’. This simple sentence for me to practice autonomy to my rights over the body, mind and health makes me a true generation equality story. Why is there so much guilt for taking chances for a form that anyone is born with?
Not only men are to be held responsible, women unwilling to give up on misogynistic concepts are equally wrongdoers.