Celebrating Equality

We celebrate womenfolk, Women’s Day is nigh!

But don’t gloss over the facts – let us see through the lie.

Sexism is rampant, yet we shine. Against all odds we trump.

But it is time to reduce the hoops through which to jump!

Feminism has been lacking in little and big things in life.

For every unsuspecting little girl, teenager, partner or wife.

Like the mandate ‘one girl per team’ in a cricket tournament,

Was the sorry excuse of inclusion at the college where I went.

Starting at home, mothers teach their girls to cook.

How many dads have gifted their sons a recipe book?

Naively we carry forward traits from regressive cultures,

Never recognizing that there is no dearth of vultures.

Families are afflicted by the ancient bug of patriarchy.

When do we truly start to combat this malarkey?

New-age partners ‘help out’. Those good men we celebrate.

Equal parenting is needed. To ‘masculinity’, it is not a threat.

Generations of the future, in patriarchal knots we bind.

Unfortunately disenfranchising our own womankind.

High heeled shoes injure but women carry on with a smile.

I vehemently say PASS! Let society honor comfort over style!

Pay Equality is a distant dream, the odds worse than one in ten.

Women earn barely 60 to 80 cents per dollar earned by men.

A child’s name is by default the one attached from the father.

Double burden duty typically rests on the working mother.

Protecting against discrimination is our collective fight.

Reproductive autonomy should be every woman’s right.

She can choose to propagate or not, her own family tree.

Just like a man, every woman deserves to be free.

I long for a world where glass ceiling is a term from the past.

We need to fight for real changes to be made, and fast!

Our daughters need not compete with a counterpart,

With an unfair gender-based advantage from the start!

We celebrate women – strong, compassionate, successful.

But only with equal rights can we honestly be prideful.

Raise the children of today with a foundation of equality.

Knowing no difference in race, class nor gender identity.

Be an activist, a feminist, an advocate, a mentor.

Elevate the marginalized – show them the wonder,

Of real success that an ‘equal society’ has in store.

Not just for Women’s Day but every day and more!