Just like white privilege, there is male privilege. It's when you think something is not a problem because it does not affect you personally. It's easy to ignore sexism when it works in your favour! Your feminism isn't valid if it only applies to your mothers, sisters, and daughters.

This lockdown induced a new trauma through the online learning system. Well, starting off with the fact that not everyone has access to laptops and computers to attend classes. Even I’m one of them, so no - we are not in this together, because you might not even know what it’s like to wait for your turn to use a laptop.

At an individual level, people's experience of reactance strongly depends on the most attainable goals and values when the threat occurs. In the COVID-19 case, fundamental goals and values such as education, the right to freely move, and religious practices are threatened. Two main factors that determine the reaction to these announced health-related measures are the absoluteness and self-relevance. If the threat is absolute, people rationalize it. If it is not, people respond with reactance. Both become stronger when the threat is self-relevant.

Please stop dividing women. Modern or traditional, female is a female. In Pakistan, we all are suffering in our known and unknown ways. Living in a context where tradition wins over common sense or science, the transfer of intergenerational trauma becomes a part of the DNA of our society. Expressed or unexpressed, we all carry this silent mutation.

I know so many girls in my country who want to wear jeans but are not allowed to do so because you see “decent girls need to dress a certain way”. Your jeans are too tight, your shirt is too short, lower your dupatta and cover your face, if someone touches you it’s probably because you dressed a certain way.

Gender roles expect girls to marry a man of their parents’ choice and if they don’t, they are labelled as characterless or disobedient. Boys are expected to follow the footsteps of their fathers. If a man has worked day and night to build his business, his son is bound to take over.

She looked at me in distaste as if I was the one who had wronged.
I said,
"Aunty didn't it take you too long?
To realize that my tea and I aren't just the same shade, we're both just as strong."

"You have been here long, but no change, in any case, it has been negative. You have lost yourself in him, what now?", the soft yet firm voice, echoed louder in my bones than in my inner ears. I thought I could fix him , I was wrong! My own emotions were in a fix. I thought I could heal him. Wrong, my own wounds of past were there glaring with rage in my heart.

I always wanted to be a mother. The thought of someone hugging on to me, someone calling me ‘mama’ always excited me. My husband and I had to wait for 4 years until the arrival of our little bundle of joy. When I got pregnant, I never thought of all the sacrifices I would have to make. My pregnancy was not as smooth as I thought it would be.

A female child's misfortune begins with her father's hatred, negligence and disinterest toward her. Although there is no certainty of future, most of the fathers usually perform less responsibility toward their own daughters when they are young or physically healthy. These sorts of irresponsible, negligent, biased and carefree treatment of fathers, make their daughters either struggle against them or posses negative attitudes toward them - like me in this autobiographical essay entitled, "Past: a Collection of Broken Images".

On that day, she had the courage to leave and not look back. It broke my heart, but more than anything else in the world, I valued her peace of mind, her chance at liberation away from the hurricane that is my father. My father made it a note in his mind to remind us every time he came home wasted that we lived in his home and he'd kick us out if he so wished.

Once there lived a girl,

A girl like me or you

A girl like your daughter or granddaughter she was

I saw her grow with time…

When I entered the hospital room, she was leaning against the window on her bed. It was a warm sunny day. But her face was mirroring dark clouds which were about to rain filled with sadness and tiredness. With her gloomy eyes watching at the sun, she must be worried about the paddy she had planted in our field a month ago. That's my mother. Wherever she would be, she won't leave worrying about her vegetable farm. She must be missing home and family too.

Even before I could tell them what I really wanted to become in my life, I was already sitting in the classroom flipping the pages of a book which I don't even remember now. The girl who was topping her higher secondary had to miserably fail in the first week unit tests. The little hope I had within me was slowly vanishing as I attended test after test after test. And all I could do was to helplessly endure.