Should women stay at home?
As a girl, I have faced multiple issues in my life of 18 years. I have been loved and despised. I have won and lost, loved and lost. I have been through the highs and lows of life as a girl, now a woman. The worst thing in my life that I have faced other than losing people is, being punished for something that has never happened; being kept at home without permission to go out. Every time I wanted to go out, I was prevented. Just asking for permission used to be a task for me. I started to sweat in my palms as soon as my friends asked me to take permission from my parents to go out and meet them. I could not even go out shopping unchaperoned. I either had my mother along with me or my brother. They never let me go out alone or with my friends. I thought I was young which was probably why they were worried about me. But, gradually I grew up and this situation prevailed. It started to feel like a punishment for some crime I had never even committed. At times I spoke up, but later it just started making me feel hopeless.
I’m 18 now and still cannot go out. Why? Why should women stay at home? Even for married and grown up women. Why should they stay at home? Why should they give up their careers to take care of their children and stay at home all the while their husbands or male family-members would work and stay out? It is absolutely wrong for people to expect women to stay at home. It is their right to go wherever they want, do whatever they want, be whoever they want. The society has no rights to impose limitations on women. This is clear misogyny and no worry or care for women. If criminal-minded and sick-minded men are what the society is scared of, they need to be changed and they need to be held captive, not women. Let us just break stereotypes because now, women are not going to keep shut and act fragile. Let us all speak up against this pro-men society and make it a place where men and women are all considered equal. Let us make this world a better place not only for men, but also women. Women will not stay at home anymore.
A woman myself,
Shubhangini Shaktawat