The irony of seeing so many lengthy messages of support for women and the importance of their contribution to society for International Women’s Day when just a mere two days before a woman was murdered by her partner was aggravating. It feels as if we are constantly gaslighted into thinking things will change only to realise when the branding and marketing of women are disposed of, the harrowing reality remains the same in our communities, jobs, homes and religious institutions for women from all walks of life. The reality is women aren’t seen as valuable, unless they walk, talk, work, look a certain way and even then they are still treading on shaky ground.
Seeing the media constantly and steadily reporting femicide while including suggested reasoning as to why it occurred is infuriating and suggests only that we have all sunk to a place where violence is justified behaviour depending on context. I wonder if we don’t realise that when we make exceptions and room to exclude the rights and protection of women, we add complicated layers of work that become difficult to untangle. A day is necessary to highlight the importance of women but the work is ongoing and constant in every aspect of our lives.
When the banners come down, when the roses wither, when the purple outfits get retired to the back of the closet I hope we aggressively continue to champion all women’s rights, regardless of ethnicity, social standing, economic bracket or town. Be it in big or small ways, I hope we continue to check ourselves on how we further embrace violence against women.
I hope for once religious leaders would know their place and role in society and realise it is not one which includes forcing women to stay in toxic and abusive relationships. I wish they would separate God and violence and stop using their form of organised religion as a weapon to condone abuse and protect men.
I hope for parents to raise children alike despite their gender. For them to intentionally stop using gender as a determining factor to establish what behaviours are unacceptable. When we intentionally recognise difference, we reinforce who is more inferior than whom and programme young minds to think exactly like this.
I wish for parents to stop using money as a tool of control for opinions and guaranteed dominance. From this, we teach children from a young age that people can be bought, manipulated, treated like property and that they too will have no value or worth without it. We teach them to tie their value to something that isn’t permanent and intrinsic to who they are.
I wish we would stop placing all the blame at the feet of women for the outcome of children when it is men too that teach them lessons when they are absent and fail to show up in ways that women can seem to divorce themselves from.
I wish for us to embrace the sexual liberation of women as much as we consider it as normal for men. No questions asked.
I hope that we can see women as beings capable, worthy and deserving of the same freedom and benefits of men. For it is only then that the world will truly transform to become free from violence and abuse in all forms.
