A 14year olds guide to change the world

i grew up in a family

that never told me that i was any less

just because i was a girl my mom has a

tiny sliver of hope for change

that my generation and i must create

but yet the people that i have met my

friends

my distant family almost everybody think

girls are somehow less

as though our worth is determined by

that dress

and for so long i have listened

but no more no more will i listen while

you undermine our worth

reducing us to just dirt

don’t get me wrong i’m not saying that

all men are bad

or that they don’t have their fair share

of struggles never a moment of weakness

held word to the sizes of their bank

accounts or their job

always thought to have intentions that

are wrong and considered worthless

for a tear that is always a second too

long

but all i’m saying is being a girl in

this world is still a curse

and we are still considered weaker

lesser reduced to just our fertility

and unfortunately that is a rarely

spoken about reality

she screamed oh help but nobody listened

cried but her future seemed helpless

and her dreams of being the next future

tycoon

ruined

she was just nine when only men spoke

business on the table

darling learned to be a good wife and

satisfy her husband

that is what society conditions so many

young girls to believe

that without a man they are

inadequate see i’m not blaming people

here

but i think there would be three root

causes for this

one educational systems consent

why is consent not a part of sex ed why

is consent to taboo

when it is a right isn’t that why a girl

a woman feels unsafe to walk home

alone at the roads at night

and then menstruation why is

menstruation still taught to only girls

and women

menstruation should be taught with

inclusivity and kindness

menstruation is something that brings

life

literally two misogyny and hatred in the

cover of love and development

i know that sounded long but what i mean

to say is women teach women and girls

teach girls and women teach

girls that they should compromise their

lives

so that their brother husband son

nephew can thrive

why do women undermine their own worth

and teach one another

to treat themselves lesser just so that

the male their male counterparts can

thrive

three

the lack of education and awareness and

privileged people

like you and me

you see we are educated we are

privileged

but yet when a family

who have two children has to choose

which

son or which daughter should they

educate who will it be

well the answer is simple for them it’s

their son

so their daughter sits at home with the

want with the want to learn or want to

know how to

read and write a desire a desire so

bright

but yet she isn’t even given the

opportunity to go to school

because somewhere along the way we lost

sight we lost sight of the fact

that our daughters were just as

important as our sons

and now our main reason for saving our

daughters

is just so that we can save them because

somewhere along the way

saving our daughters became more

important than educating them

and how long will you save your

daughters before you educate them

how can something so vital so crucial so

imperative

be not not given voluntarily not

provided voluntarily

but the thing is it’s none of my reasons

from one to three

it’s more than that

unfortunately

unfortunately even today we are given

the privilege

to bleed with dignity to be educated so

beautifully

yet yet we choose to fly so high with

wings so widespread that we clip

off another’s wings because we have been

flying way too high

for way too long now

yes

and i want to be a parrot i want to be a

parrot that

talks too loud or talks too much but

listens listens to those with restraints

that

i could never have fathom then i urge

every single one of you to be that

parrot

because maybe we can we have hope

to allow another bird to fly once again

or maybe let another bird have their

first light

first flight or maybe just maybe

we can restore hope once again

dear world hi how are you doing

how is your mental health we are caught

amidst multiple pandemics right now

from covet 19 to domestic abuse to

menstrual inequity

and many of you have been going through

one or more of them

i am sending so much strength and love

your way for you to be able to let go of

any shackles that hold you down

being woman is not a social construct

it is an attitude being

woman is a mode of self-expression that

predominantly exists

within every single one of us being

woman is so much more than the

pre-conformed notions of female

reproductive

parts being woman is

all about being yourself embracing the

woman within you

that is my idea of being woman

ever since we’ve been kids we’ve learned

to treat everybody with kindness with

love with care everyone with the same

opportunities everyone with the same

same niceness the same tenderness

and that eventually evolved into the

concept of equality in our minds

the thing is i am beginning to realize

that equality

is not just providing everybody with the

same opportunities

the same privileges the same things the

same ideas the same concepts

and having everybody on the same

pedestal i

am beginning to realize that equality is

so much more

equality begins within you within me

within every single one of us equality

is initiated with the continuous journey

of education

equality begins by understanding that

there is a certain amount of

conditioning

within every single one of us and i mean

it

identifying the conditioning that exists

within you

and the conditioning that exists within

me and the conditioning that exists

within every single person here

conditioning develops between our

infancy to our teenage years

and it isn’t something that we really

have the power

to change necessarily without

consciously making that decision

let me have a little bit of a backstory

to this

so conditioning is as simple as hearing

that

only males should be bread winners and

women are expected to give up their

careers and take care of their family or

women are better suited for their family

or women should not have careers because

they’re meant to take care of their

family

or the fact that the patriarchy also

affects men by saying simple things like

men have to be the breadwinners men have

to have good jobs men cannot be

stay-at-home dads

these are things that we are conditioned

to believe from

our infancy till our teenagers the thing

is conditioning is such a

oddly complex but an oddly simple thing

it is so easy to change so for example

if i set up a positive association

with changing that belief changing that

stigma changing the menstrual stigma

that existed within me

i could change the way that i perceive

things

it’s a continuous journey of

understanding that my previous thoughts

were not just negative to my own

well-being but also to that of others so

the only way i can change my

conditioning

is by imagining that my new thought will

make not only myself

but this world a better place

conditioning is something that can so

easily be developed and changed but very

often we do not make the conscious

decision to do so

because making the conscious decision of

transforming our mindsets

in the way that we perceive things is a

choice a choice that we rarely choose

and literally like i said reconditioning

just requires you

to be able to set up a understanding

that this new thought

is beneficial to everybody as a whole

my name is anisha bhatia and i am a 14

year old student at podar international

school

mumbai working with the period society

an organization

with an aim to end the menstrual stigma

within india

here is some of our work with

marginalized communities

across mumbai and across india

i am telling you the story of a little

girl a little girl

who was wide-eyed a little chirpy girl

she did not know that menstruation was

something that should not be stigmatized

she lived under the perception of the

menstrual stigma

for so long and she was a part of it

that little girl was me

i vividly remember dealing with period

stains in school without confiding in

anybody

because apparently that would include a

whole lot of humiliation and

mortification along with it

i also remember carrying cloth pouches

with our sanitary napkins with my

friends to the washrooms

because sanitary pads were not only

something to be ashamed of

but possibly even disgusted by and i

felt that way

for a really really really long time

until i began working

with the period society the period

society

was not necessarily a difficult choice

for me to make

or something that really pushed me out

of my comfort zone that i had

obliviously set up for myself

it was just something that reminded me

that hey

you’re not as progressive as you think

you are

and that may have been a little bit of a

push in the right direction

so when i began working with the period

society

i began talking about periods to anybody

and everybody

i can still remember my first phone call

with the guy

who was supposed to sponsor us for baths

so do you see what i’m saying

from a little girl who could not talk

about menstruation to even her own

father

to going ahead and talking about

menstruation to anybody and everybody

was a rather large step for me to make

i remember not having those

conversations about menstruation

with my father within my own four walls

i could not have those conversations

but working with the period society

showed me that i had so much

internalized stigma within myself

that there was so much i could call

myself out for

and you know i was privileged enough to

be able to make that choice

to be able to talk about periods to my

father because

even today girls dropping out of school

after their first period

is still so prevalent even today girls

living in

outhouses because their parents do not

want them

to somehow possibly dirty the house

still exists and even today

fathers ask their daughters to not sit

on the same tables as them or not eat at

the same time as them in the same place

as them

because menstruation is still perceived

as empire

but i was able and i was privileged

enough to make that decision

to change the way menstruation was seen

within my

own four walls and my two parents

and that decision can be made by every

single

one of you

and as i grew and as i learned about

menstruation about

empathy about understanding struggles

that i have never gone through and i

would never have even fathomed

i grew as a human being because growing

up

with a lack of empathy is when we grow

up

with the lack of understanding about the

gender pay gap about menstrual inequity

about sexism misogyny and these are

things so many of us grow up without

learning we grow up without a lack of

empathy

but empathy is to love trust and respect

a stranger can you do that

can you ask yourself that question every

single day

can i love trust and respect a stranger

enough to provide them with the basic

necessities that they may require

and as this little girl grew she

understood

that equality was not just offering

everybody the same privileges and the

same things

it was more than that equality is

providing everybody with the same

basic resources for them to create their

own lives with

equality is not handing anybody anything

on a silver platter it is just providing

them

with the basic resources for them to

create their own lives with

it is handing the canvas to the painter

and as the little girl threw and learned

empathy she also understood

that empathy has to be given to far

beyond

girls women animals

it goes to your own self

empathy has to be given to yourself

during heart situations

empathy has to be given to sisterhood

to brotherhood to humankind

and this little girl had always stood up

for lgbtq plus rights

but understanding that menstruation was

something so

gender inclusive was

so spectacular and it was quite frankly

a whole

revelation she understood that

menstruation was so

intersectional and so so

amazing she understood to respect

menstrual blood

if we learn empathy if we learn kindness

and if we learn to provide everybody

with the same basic opportunities

we learn to interchangeably build better

environments

and as this little girl grew just a

little more as she does

every single day she understood that

animals require

just as much if not more empathy than

can be provided

so she started raising funds to provide

her furry friends

the opportunity to safer lovable and

better lives

and she did that by selling her

paintings and raising funds

to provide them with all the love in the

world

the thing is that change starts from

within you

none of this would have been possible

for that little girl had she not

recognized

the internalized misogyny the

internalized stigma

the internalized patriarchy that existed

within her

and had she not decided to do something

about it and recondition her mind

every single day she would not be racist

today

you do not owe anything to anybody

but do not make someone sit in silence

while they cry silently because humanity

was here

long before you and if you or nobody

you or humanity

make that difference today signing off

that wide-eyed little girl who will

never ever

stop dreaming and never ever stop

learning thank you