What kind of a woman is not a “real woman”?
Society has time and again tried to define what women are supposed to be rather than accepting them for who they are, thus discounting the experiences and sometimes even the existence of women. Through a series of tweets, writer Shailja Patel threw light on the number of ways a woman is forced to conform to strict and impossible ideals in order to appease the world. And why this is something that must stop.
Her tweets have since gone viral within hours, with hundreds sharing her message.
Thread.
Women deemed “not real women” in many times and places:
Black women
Colonized African, Asian, Indigenous women
Unmarried women— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Women who haven’t given birth.
Women who give birth in captivity.
Women who give birth and have their children stolen.— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Women who read and write.
Women who do mathematics and science.
Women who publish.
Women who make art.
Women who speak in public.— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Women who love other women.
Women who do sex work.
Women who do manual labour.
Women who practice medicine.— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Enslaved women.
Dalit women.
Incarcerated women.— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Women who drum.
Women who play bass guitar.
Women who perform on stage.
Women behind the camera.
Women who smoke.
Women who drink.— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Women who run for political office.
Women who win political office.
Women who succeed in political office.— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
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At the end of it all, she wonders who benefits from the extreme policing that gets shackled on women across the world. And it’s a question she leaves unanswered.
Who gets to unwoman women?
Who profits from the policing of women?
What is threatened by transgressive women and gender variance?— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) March 14, 2017
Who says 140 characters aren’t enough for poetry?
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