28/05/2009 21:39:16
You've hit the nail on the head Srividya and kudos for that:) I share your anger on the stereotyping menace! Wish this poem reaches a wider audience everyday !
Lullaby to a Girl Child
This poem expresses my anger with stereotypes. Everywhere around the world, girls are taught to suppress their feelings, urges, spontaneity, intelligence, sexuality and self-expression in order to conform to various stereotypes. They end up wearing the scars of such conditioning all their lives.
We grow, live and die a stereotype. Mothers--even the most modern and educated among us--fear for their children's safety and, as a result, instruct them to take the "safe" route, or the path less trodden. "Good girls don't do such things" is a tag that trips us up with guilt every time we try to break away.
By raising anger in the reader at systems that need to change, "Lullaby to a Girl Child" is an indirect call for action. Every mother should raise her daughter to face the world with courage and dignity and not bow down to stereotypes.
Don’t jump or run
What if you hurt yourself there?
Don’t bawl
Stifle the pain. Let the tears flow artistically down your cheeks.
Please
Don’t walk so tall and confident.
Look down
at the ground as you walk.
Don’t stare back
Instead lower your eyelids, shyly.
Pinch your cheek
Practise your blush for the compliments to come.
Giggle
Never laugh out loud.
Lower
Your voice. It should never be heard
Go deaf
Pretend you haven’t heard all that you do.
Hold your tongue
At any cost, never speak your mind.
Blank your mind
Don’t have any thoughts, opinions or ideas.
Bottle up
Your desires; you are his property and his slave.
Hide
your bosom, don’t jut it out, and don’t sway your hips
Close up
Sit demure. Don’t spread your legs.
Open up.
Be the vamp when he so desires.
Hide
Your intelligence and your rebellion and your revulsion.
Fake.
Your orgasm
Pray.
You get a baby boy the first time.
Sacrifice.
Your very identity to a stereotype
Yes dear, you would be just fine, you would be just fine,
Safe from the taliban, safe from the sena,
safe from the men that would be born
from our very wombs.
Srividya Srinivasan, February, 2, 2009
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