Women deserve to live freely

We live in a society where females are still treated with less importance than men. In some areas of the world more than others, women experience discrimination, segregation, and of course gender in-equality. Some girls are still not allowed to get educated simply because they are women. Others are victims of sexual assault and are being treated as if they are criminals rather than the victims. I’m sorry to say that this is the world we live in today.

Women deserve the right to be treated as equals. Women deserve the right to make choices for themselves and to not be judged based on those choices. Women deserve to be treated with the same amount of respect men do in society today.

I find it quite alarming that this isn’t the case. Over the past few weeks I’ve been coming across evidence proving that women are not given the same respect or importance given to men in many an occasion. Being brought up in a family where there is no differentiation between female and male abilities made this new found knowledge of the world very alarming to me. Who is to say ladies aren’t as intelligent, athletic, or artistic as men? Why are they being suppressed?!

So instead of just pondering about this topic, I have decided to take a step forward and try to make a change or at least challenge the world views of many that believe women are insignificant in comparison to men. From now till the end of August, I will be raising awareness about this issue on Youth Are Awesome for our readers to become aware of and help in starting a movement towards equality for all. It starts from us, the youth, we are the leaders of today. Together we can promote gender equality for the greater good of humanity.

To start off I’d like to introduce you to a video that created stimulus for my project, it is called My Choice directed by Homi Adajania for Vogue Empower. It is a beautiful 2-3 minute video talking about the power of being a women and how the choices we make should be respected. It speaks to how women do have power, and how we are no longer allowing ourselves to be suppressed. It is about taking a chance and being free from societal expectations; escaping the cages men have put us in.

After watching this video I was inspired and gained motivation once again to “strive for the sky and beyond” because women have the capability to do so. We have the ability to make our own choices and stick by them. Being happy and living a life of self-satisifaction comes from the internal choices we make. It also comes from blocking out all the unnecessary judgement placed upon us.

However, we have a right to challenge negative and unjust judgement. We have a right to put a stop to the idiocy in society. A lot of the time when anything outside of the box is introduced to society there is a negative reaction alike to the reaction the My Choice video received. Now I’m not saying people aren’t entitled to their own perspectives, but that being said when individuals are forcing their opinions and views on females that should immediately be stopped.

An example of a reaction that completely took the Vogue Empowerment video out of context was a video response by Rajinish Collins in his “Logical Reply to Deepika Padukone’s ‘My Choice'” Disclaimer: The reason I have chosen to not directly post the video is because it does contain images on nudity and so on, I also do not accept the way he is portraying women in the video.   

He is using what is being said in the My Choice video and turning it into joke by portraying women as sleaze-bags/commodities for male pleasure, which is not and will not be the case! He is focusing on lines such as “Let my body be free” or “Sex before marriage” as weapons talking about a lack of morality, which is completely idiotic because what a women decides to do with her life is her choice not his. The video speaks to letting women’s bodies being free as a set up for men to sexual abuse women, it says it “prevents your body for being raped” but wake up man, a way a woman dresses is not an invitation for men to do what they please! It also speaks about morality but where are his morals?! If men can’t have any self-control then that is their fault, it is a trait they need to learn to obtain, it is their imperfection not ours. 

In the video he basically depicts females as being weak and fragile creatures not humans. There is no humanity in that video, it completely disgusts me. It is the narrow-mindedness of this mindset that trap women’s souls. It is insecurity that tells them that women should not make choices for themselves. It is the insecurity of being over-powered by female intellectuals that makes them put down beautiful and inspirational videos like Homie Adajania’s, My Choice Vogue Empowerment video. Because I am sorry to say but some of the men in this world are cowards, too afraid to admit that if educated, women have the capability and potential of being more intelligent and independent than most men. It is saddening to see how parts of society would rather put down women than inspire them to rise high. Women ARE NOT commodities, nor should they be treated like one. Our choices define who we are, your actions define who you are. 

So sorry man, your logical response to the My Choice video isn’t logical at all. As harsh as this may sound it is very much so an uneducated and unsophisticated view of the world, I sincerely do hope you realize the value of women and stop demoralizing who we are.

However to clarify if I am being misunderstood I am not saying that all men are chauvinistic, a certain population are and it’s becoming apart of many cultures, which is why I find it necessary to take a stand. All of this being said is my first step to creating change in this world, I pray and hope that all the youth reading my blog support me in this new endeavour because I know that we are the generation that is going to create change.

I am definitely interested in hearing your opinions about this blog, the My Choice video, or the not-so logical response to the My Choice video. Please leave your opinion in the comments or tweet me @malika_daya!