SHEEM SOORAYYA SANDOOYEA
We stand on the blood of millions of girls and women before us with rage in our hearts. If girls and women knew what our foremothers had to go through for us to enjoy the privileges we have today, we’d be a lot more grateful – the right to vote, to work, to educate ourselves, to own property or vehicle, to be independent, to persecute abusers and be taken seriously. Women were already discriminated against because they ‘belonged to the kitchen’. They had no voices. Now, imagine what women of colour went through. An ‘inferior’ gender combined racism based on skin colour made life ten times harder for women of colour. Yet, despite all those decades of fighting, women STILL do not enjoy equal rights today.
In 2025, it is outrageous to witness the growing number of feminicide cases, (marital) rape, abuse and harassment (mental, physical, sexual), misogyny. Women are still not represented nor are they included in the decision-making process. How can decisions about women be taken without any woman present?! Hard to conceive but it all boils down to men wanting to control women – whether it be about us covering our heads or not, what rights we have over our own bodies, it does not stop. There are genocide and wars to stop, poverty to eradicate, food security to achieve and more pressing problems to solve but they are more concerned with what women do with their bodies. However, when women seek justice, the politicians disappear and the silence is deafening.
Our bodies are physically different and we bleed once per month but we have to ‘suck it up’ because « we want equality ». So, we have the same number of sick leaves as our male colleagues and we have to work the same number of hours, if not longer. Many women go through debilitating pain due to endometriosis or PCOS or painful period simply. Is this how we seek to achieve equality? We need to recognise our differences and make space for women to advance in spite of them. Economically, women incur costs monthly for most of our lives because of those menstruations which is a natural part of our lives. Is this accounted for in our remuneration? Of course not. This is already a disparity.
Women have been blessed with the ability to nurture and give life. Yet, pregnancy can be a scary and tough journey (physically, mentally, financially). Do we get more sick leaves as our male counterparts (due to severe morning sickness or exhaustion)? Of course not, there is an economic value assigned to us and there is no room for humanity or empathy. Do women get financial support for the number of doctor’s checkups or blood tests they have to endure? « Huh, she got pregnant, so she can pay herself. » Again, economically, we are set back. Due to the numerous health challenges today, many women struggle to conceive and that is another heartbreaking subject which creates greater gender inequality.
Once women give birth, people think that « maternity leaves » are a vacation! Women have to adjust to a completely changed body, to handle the physical pain postpartum, to cater for a new human being who does not know how to convey his/her needs, and still heal from the birth. There is so much pressure on women after giving birth, yet society does little to nothing to educate or equip women during motherhood. Mothers often find themselves alone to navigate this new chapter of life without proper physical or mental support. Let us not forget to mention the financial costs associated with a new baby or the challenges and lack of support around breastfeeding (which is recommended for at least two years but hey, we have an economy to run!).
When women do the jobs well, « wow they add value to our workforce and help our companies grow ». But when they report harassment or abuse, « why are they bringing drama to work? It must be their fault or they must be overwhelmed with their married life or it must be their hormones, » you name it. What haven’t we heard?! Suddenly, we represent a liability to the company. ‘Mental health’ and ‘DEI’ become just empty words thrown around to attract new talents and improve brand image. Are companies truly embedding what they are preaching? Your employees will speak for you because they represent you.
Every day from the moment we are born, we break through stereotypes, prejudices, bias, micro aggressions, misogyny, bigotry, patriarchy and even white feminism to make a place for us in society and for those who will follow. If we succeed, we must be a witch or we must have used our “assets” (ever wonder about how witches were mostly women?!). If we fail, we probably deserved it because we just did not do enough. Women are never enough – that’s the message that the media industry keep pushing forward. “Women are superheroes, they can do it all and they can have it all – one or three jobs, unpaid household chores, childcare, care for elderly, study, become the President of what-not-club”. This ideology only pressurises women into doing more for free at the cost of their own health. We do not need to be told that we can do it all, we have been doing it all for centuries. We need men to step up, we need the whole system to change and make place for us.
We need to question our past to place our current situation into the right context. We need to understand where we come from. It is scientifically proven that trauma changes our DNA. From one generation of woman to the next, we carry the trauma of one another. We come from women who have been bullied, harassed, abused. We come from women of colour who had nothing and who were made to work for peanuts. We come from women who were told they mean nothing and they have no say in anything. We need to release the pain that we hold deep within us which belong to those women who came before us. We need to find the path to healing for those who will come after us and it is not a peaceful way. No one handed over rights, they had to be fought for.
The fight for feminism is intersectional – it is for women and men as well who are victims of patriarchy or white feminism and it is for the sanctity of life (human beings, plants, animals, the planet). The fight for women’s rights is intertwined for the fight for liberation against oppression, wars and genocide, colonialism and imperialism, apartheid, capitalism and consumerism. The fight for women’s rights is SYSTEMIC. The system has been designed against us and for us to fail. It is a system designed by men for men. We do not need a freaking seat at the table or to break glass ceilings, we need a whole new system. We need a system which factors in our humanity and empathy, a system which places the sanctity of life at the heart of it.
Girls and women need a system which recognises that we are human beings, not tools that have economic values. As the world heads further into fascism and as the construct of democracy is being severely tested globally, it should come as no surprise that the current system is crumbling. The rich and powerful, politicians are clinging to the power in their hands through violent means. The shifts in geopolitical alliances, moves and countermoves have opened doors for dangerous times. We have entered into a new phase of our era – perhaps, the beginning of the end. For us to build a new and better world, this one has to be brought down and unfortunately as history has taught us, everything will be more violent and repressive.
This is the time for us to organise, to regroup and understand how all fights for justice and equality are intersectional – gender equality, workers’ rights, ending genocide and wars, closing down of military bases, fighting climate change, and so on. We use our voices, we write, we march and protest, we use music and arts to resist. Our very existence is an act of resistance in the face of tyranny and oppression because we are human beings, we are here and we will not conform. No one or nothing is above one another, not human beings, not animals, not plants and certainly not the planet – we need each other for the survival of our species, we live in an ecosystem. We have to destroy that notion of superiority. The whole system feels outdated nowadays as we want more, not in material terms, we want to be free and we want to breathe. Just like Mother Earth wants to breathe.
It is our duty to try and repair the damage that has been done to the world. It is our duty as the current generation to leave a better place behind for our children.
