NOT MY DAUGHTER

       

      

                     Do you ever think…?

                    Do you ever think about,

How the world looks through the eyes of a           

                              Woman?

                         Really think.

 Not the sugarcoated fantasies they sell in books. 

                              Or

The kind of feminist slogans slapped on protest                              signs for show. 

                               I mean,

                           The truth. 

          The ugly, raw, brutal truth.

From the moment we are born no, even before that we are marked. 

We are conditioned, shaped, and sometimes, without realizing it, we are broken. 

               And it starts so quietly.

 No one ever tells you directly that you are less.                         

                     But you feel it. 

                    In the little things.

 The way you’re hushed when you speak too loudly. 

The way you’re told to sit with your legs closed because you’re a “lady.”

 The way you’re told not to fight back, not to speak up too much.

                                  Stay quiet. 

                                   Be small.

                    Stay pretty, but not too bold. 

                Be present, but don’t take up space. 

   They shape us into dolls, fragile, breakable,                      always ready to be controlled.

You are told to bloom, but only in the shade.

 To shine, but never outshine. 

To speak, but in a whisper, as if your voice alone could shatter the world’s fragile comfort.”

And what happens when you step out of line?

 The consequences are never small. 

They say we’re equal now, but that’s a lie.

And we don't want to be equal or less or more. 

We want to be woman.

Just woman.

 A man can slip through life with the bare minimum of decency and still be celebrated. 

A woman?

 A single mistake defines her. 

One wrong step, one too many words, and she’s labeled: too much, too little, not enough, too loud

Too something, always. A man’s world will never be questioned, but a woman’s? 

It will be dissected and torn apart until there’s nothing left but judgment.

They tell me to sit down,

to be still like water,

but I have oceans inside me,

waves that rage and crash

against the shores.

And they wonder why I drown

in my own quiet.

It’s not even the obvious things that burn me anymore the laws, the pay gaps, the endless objectification.

 No, it’s the little, constant stabs, the casual cruelty, the everyday reminders that you, as a woman, are a target.

 You don’t even have to do anything wrong. 

Your body is a threat.

 Your mere existence is enough to stir anger, control, and domination.

You see it in their eyes. 

The way they look at you.

 Not as a person, but as an opportunity, a conquest. 

They size you up, not as a whole being, but as something to possess, to control, to break.

“The world says, ‘Be a woman,’ but what it really means is, ‘Be less.’ Less loud. Less wild. Less free. Less alive.”

Have you ever noticed how men say, “My daughter,” “My wife,” “My sister,” with so much pride, like we’re trophies?

 They say it like ownership, not love.

 Do we ever belong to ourselves? 

Or are we always someone’s to claim? 

We are named, shaped, defined by the men around us.

And then there’s the hate. 

The hate we experience simply because we exist. It’s deep. 

It’s relentless. 

It’s everywhere. 

You can feel it in the way men look at you, the way they talk to you, even when they pretend to be kind. 

But deep down, you know. There’s a superiority ingrained in them, a belief they were born with that says they own this world, and we? 

We’re merely guests. Temporary, fragile guests.

They dress us in expectations,

lace our skin with fear,

and tell us that love is sacrifice 

but sacrifice only looks like survival

when you are bleeding.

You see the stories. Every day. 

Another woman violated, another woman stripped of her dignity, her voice, her body. And then people turn around and say, “Well, why was she there? 

What was she wearing? Why didn’t she fight harder?” 

As if the burden is on her to prevent her own destruction. 

But even if she fights, what does it change?

 The world blames her for everything, no matter what she does.

We are punished for existing. Punished for breathing.

Have you ever stopped to wonder, why is it always our fault? 

Why is the onus always on us? We tell girls to cover up, to behave, to shrink themselves to avoid danger.

 But we never tell boys to grow up, to respect, to see us as equals, not as objects to be conquered or silenced. 

We are constantly told to adapt to a broken world instead of fixing the world itself.

“She was born whole, but the world teaches her to fracture, to be delicate so she does not disrupt the men who believe they are unbreakable.”

It sickens me. 

It eats me up inside. 

To watch it happen again and again, as if it’s some cruel game we’re forced to play. 

And what’s the prize? Safety? Freedom? No. There is no prize for us, only survival. But even that is stolen from us sometimes.

You want me to bring a daughter into this world?How could I? Knowing what I know. Seeing what I see. How could I let her walk into this cruel theater, where her pain will be dismissed, her joy ridiculed, and her body commodified?

They say women are brave.Strong. 

They like to turn our suffering into some kind of badge of honor. 

“Look how strong she is,” they say after she’s been broken and bent a hundred times. 

But why do we have to be strong? Why can’t we just… be? 

Why do we always have to prove our worth through how much we can endure?

So dear baby,

Forgive mumma.

I don’t want my daughter to have to be strong. 

I don’t want you to carry the weight of the world’s cruelty on your shoulders.

 I don’t want you to grow up in a world where you have to apologize for mere existence. 

I don’t want you to know the fear that I’ve known.

 The fear that every woman knows.

“Strength is not a crown I want you to wear,

because it is heavy, and you are light.

Strength is what the world forces you to become,

when all I want is for you is to remain whole.”

When I think about bringing a daughter into this world, it doesn’t fill me with joy.

 It fills me with dread. 

With horror. 

Because I know what awaits her.

 I know what this world does to women.

 It chews them up and spits them out, and then it asks why they’re broken.

The world teaches us to bend,

to bow,

to break.

But what if I want her to grow tall,

to stand firm,

to rise 

without apology?

I think a lot about you, My dear.

My unborn love.

The daughter I could have.

 And I love you so much, even though you are  just an idea, a figment of my imagination for now.

 I love you enough to protect you from this world.

 I love you enough to spare you from the pain, the humiliation, the endless struggle of being born into a world that will never fully accept you.

And it’s not because I think women are weak.

 No. 

We are the strongest beings on this earth. 

But that’s the tragedy, isn’t it? We are so strong, yet so fragile. 

So resilient, yet so easily broken. 

We carry the weight of generations on our backs, yet we are treated as if we are nothing. Disposable. Replaceable.

“They tell us we are powerful,

but they never tell us that power is a burden.

They say we are brave

but they never tell us that brave

is built from years of being torn apart.”

I don’t want you to have to fight. I don’t want you to have to prove yourself every single day. 

I don’t want you to look in the mirror and question your worth, your beauty, your place in this world.

 I don’t want you to be another woman who feels like she has to apologize for existing.

I’ve seen too much. 

I’ve felt too much.

 And maybe that makes me selfish.

 Maybe it makes me weak. But I won’t apologize for it..

 I won’t bring you into a world that will destroy you. Because it will. 

No matter how much I will try to protect you, the world will find a way to get to you. 

It always does.

“The world sharpens its knives

against the skin of women,

and yet, they call us soft.

But I will not let you bleed for a world

that refuses to see you.”

You can blame me if you want.

 Call me a coward, call me weak.

 But I won’t apologize for this decision.

 It’s the only way I know how to love you.

 By keeping yoy safe. 

By keeping you away from all of this.

Because this world… it doesn’t deserve you. It doesn’t deserve your innocence, your beauty, your light.

 It will only dim you, break you, and blame you for your own undoing. 

And I won’t stand by and watch that happen.

So no. 

I won’t have a daughter. 

Not in this world. 

Not in this cruel, brutal, unforgiving world that still worships men and sacrifices women at the altar of its hypocrisy.

And maybe one day, things will change.

Maybe one day, the world will be a place where a woman can live without fear, without shame, without apology.

 But until then, I choose not to bring you here. Because I love you too much to let this world have you.

Forgive mumma.

Not my daughter.

Not this time.