A Woman Should Not Have to Be Fearless to Be Free
Empowerment:
A Woman Should Not Have to Be Fearless to Be Free
For the past few days, I have been writing about women’s safety.
About fear.
About harassment.
About violence.
About the judgement that often follows a woman even after she has already been hurt.
But perhaps safety is only the beginning of the conversation.
Because I don’t want a world where women are merely taught how to survive.
I want a world where they are allowed to live.
We tell women to be careful when they walk alone.
To watch what they wear.
To be cautious about whom they trust.
To avoid certain places.
To keep their phones charged.
To share their location.
To learn self-defence.
Yes, some of these precautions may save lives.
But somewhere, quietly, we have transferred the responsibility for violence onto the person who might suffer it.
Why must a woman constantly calculate danger in order to enjoy an ordinary life?
Why should freedom come with a safety manual?
A woman should be able to laugh loudly without being called available.
Say no without being called arrogant.
Leave a relationship without being threatened.
Walk home without calculating footsteps behind her.
Speak on social media without becoming a target.
Be successful without inviting resentment.
Be beautiful without becoming an object.
Be vulnerable without becoming prey.
And when something happens to her, perhaps the first question should not be...
“Why was she there?” “Why did she trust him?” “Why did she go alone?” “Why did she speak?”
Perhaps the first question should simply be...
“Why did someone believe they had the right to hurt her?”
Empowerment is not teaching women to live smaller lives so that they remain safe.
It is giving them the education, economic independence, confidence, legal awareness, support systems and social freedom to make their own choices and building institutions and communities that respect those choices.
And empowerment is not the absence of fear.
A woman can be frightened and still speak.
She can be wounded and still rise.
She can cry and still be powerful.
She can walk away and still love.
She can begin again without asking anyone for permission.
Strength does not always roar.
Sometimes it is simply a woman deciding that what happened to her will not decide who she becomes.
Perhaps that is what I have wanted to say all along.
I don’t want our daughters to grow up learning only how to protect themselves from the world.
I want them to grow up believing that the world belongs to them too.
And perhaps the real measure of a safe society is not how carefully its women learn to walk through it...
But how freely they are finally allowed to.
Let women exist without fear. Let women speak without punishment. Let women choose without permission. Let women live without apology.
Safety is the right. Freedom is the destination. Empowerment is knowing that neither has to be begged for.
Dr. Kalpana. K