Stand Together

I just want to clarify that when a man looks at you the first time, it may be out of curiosity, but when he turns his head around to look at you fully again, a fraction of a second later, he is checking you out. Staring, especially constant staring at work, while travelling or while just minding your own business can be annoying to those women who are not looking for any unwelcome attention. Let us grow up ladies and realise what kind of attention is good and which is bad. After being made aware of the rules of engagement again and again, when men gawk at you, it isn’t a compliment. It is a behaviour that needs to be discouraged. When your sister, friend or collogue talks to you about unwelcome staring, you need to take it seriously instead of justifying it. Always remember, a curious look is different from a perverse look and as women, we instinctively know the difference. I encourage women to know and understand that when a man turns his head around to look at you twice, ...

Why is it important to assert my rights? The answer is simple - because I exist! The biggest desire of my heart is to be treated equally and when that does not happen, to be able to assert my rights. I’m not speaking of when and if faced with a civil rights situation. I am talking about everyday life. From being wanted to be heard to having my problems resolved, everything is related to me being a human being with a singular personality. As I grow older, I realise that proclaiming my rights or asking people to treat me as an individual with strong opinions gets harder day by day. The harder it gets, the louder my voice will become. I find that I cannot sit by and let things go; which is why I feel the need to assert my rights every time I breathe. That is how important my freedom and the ideal of being treated equally are to me. A lot of people do not understand this and so they call me a mischief maker to discredit me. We live in a world where even treating others equall...

One of the most famous quotes on the Internet today is that if someone does not treat you right, it is a reflection of who they are and not what you are. I used to believe that respect is something one earns but over the years I have realised that respect is a given and it is trust, which is earned. Giving respect to life, whether human or animal is my duty. It does not matter how hard I try. I still fail at it every day. Each one of us has the fate of human dignity in our hands and most of us fail to uplift it every time we breathe. From women being subjected to gross atrocities, children ravaging bins to survive, people fleeing their destroyed worlds and countless dying of hunger each day, there is so much hanging in the balance. I don’t wish to get preachy but how can we not act right when we know a person’s dignity is our hands? Why do we grow up believing that people who don’t have all that we have are inferior to us? How do I, an employee of an IT company, become more s...