A woman.
To be born a woman, is to be born constantly asking why were you born as a woman.
I have never really questioned why am I a woman when I was little. My mom has always been liberating us, her children, to play with whatever we want, to wear whichever color that we want, to behave as a kid as much as we want. When I cried so loud, she never shushed me down and tell me that women are not allowed to be loud. And which for that, I am forever grateful.
As the time goes by, I began to actually question why am I the way I am. I remember when I started to learn about praying in elementary school and how women are not allowed to pray when we have our period.
I was enraged.
I did not understand why is it like that when period is literally one of the inherent thing from women. It is not like we have our choice to not have period. I remember some part of me was consciously hoping that one day, I will just stop being a woman, then proceed to ask in the abyss: “Why was I born as a woman?”. I thought that question, would remain itself in the abyss without ever surfacing itself once more, but maybe, that is not the truth.
To be born a woman, is to feel ashamed of your own normal body cycle.
When I finally got myself in middle school, I remember we did have this extra hour to prepare ourselves for finals after school. Therefore, instead of going home around 2 pm, we went home around 4 pm everyday except for Friday.
Since the Zuhr prayer time ended around 3 pm, we have the choice to pray at the school’s mosque on the third break, it was on 1 pm. I usually went to the school’s mosque by myself because I rather do it pretty quickly on my own pace and I did not fascinated with the idea of waiting for someone else, when I could have used that time to eat my lunch.
Little did I know, that some of my classmates actually noticing how my schedule on third break usually went by. They started asking question, especially on how I always pray and never missed even once with the fact that I am a woman. At first I just ignored them, in my head I be telling myself that these people have no business at all about this. But for some reasons, this became an obsession of this group of people. I started to feel more self-conscious on how my schedule be going. They started to shame me when they found out I was having my period. And oh did I lie when I say their words were starting to crawl under my skin?
I was so ashamed when I got my period and I did not want anyone to ever find it out, so even when I got my period, I would still go to the mosque. Pretended to pray, with the hope that no one will ever notice on how I actually be chanting the lyrics of my favorite song at the time, anything that comes to my mind. After doing all that, I began to ask myself once more: “Why was I born as a woman?”. I never really expecting any answers, but I keep on asking it anyway, hoping that maybe there would be people who ask away in the abyss, just like the way I always do it.
To be born a woman, is to not feel safe in most of your life.
Little did I notice, how I be growing older as the time is ticking by. I was finally a senior high school student.
In senior high school, I started to go out hangout with my friends. We be having a full-day school, so the only chance for us to actually hang out would be the night time. My parents never really forbid me to go out at night, as long as I am taking full responsibility of whatever I do and I tell them where do I hangout to, they are fine.
Most friends of mine that are girls are rarely allowed to hangout till night, therefore I usually hangout with the guys and just have fun. I remember feeling so jealous, even until now, with the fact that my guy friends are not afraid to wear whatever they want in the middle of the night, with their motorcycle because they are a man. Meanwhile me, I have to wear this big hoodie, training pants that are bigger than my actual size, hide my bag, hide my hair, pretend that I am not a woman, to feel safe. Even sometimes, I consciously asking my guy friends to accompany me to go home when it is too late, just so that I would know that I would go home in one alive piece of me. This question has always been lingering inside of me, but I have never really am brave enough to put it out there: “Why was I born a woman?”, the abyss never really answer my question.
To be born a woman, is also to constantly feel like you are over sensitive 24/7.
I remember feeling offended by a sexist joke, and when I reacted not the way people want it, they call me oversensitive. The feelings that I have, is always being belittled. For the longest time, too, I begin to believe on what they say it was true, I was over sensitive. I was not supposed to feel, the way I feel. I begin to feel tired myself to ask this question.
To be born a woman, you begin to see how discriminated women in this world are and instead of stop asking question, you start on changing the questions.
As now I study law, I start to see reality better. Even our system of justice is never really nice to a woman. I found myself asking question still, but it was no longer: “Why was I born as a woman?”.
It is: “What can I do to fight and make the world better for all women? What power that I have to offer, to use my privileged better for all women?”
Happy International Women’s Day 2021 to all the women out there, I hope you know that I am here trying to fight for the rights you deserve. Because, I know myself that
To be born a woman, is to be born constantly being aware on how this world has never been the nicest ever to a woman.
