I married him twenty years ago.
Not a single year passed by without beatings, humiliation, scandals, and divorce.
He’s stingy and horrible.
He humiliates me in front of everyone.
He’s sick.
He has a terrible personality,
And he’s weak.
He doesn’t even perform his marital obligations—
He can’t do it.
He always finds something to hold over my head.
I’m fed up with him.
I work in a pharmacy.
One day an old lady walked in with her daughter.
“Assalam alikum. Are you a miss or a mrs.?”
“I’m the pharmacist,” I replied, “Can I help you?”
She asked for some pills.
Then I heard her telling her daughter:
“It’s alright to ask her.”
I feel like I can’t be feminine and taken seriously at the same time.
I have to either be a child or act like a man to be given worth and acceptance.
Strong women are considered to be confusing—troublesome.
womanhood, social pressure
I was sexually assaulted in public, and no one tried to help me.
It happened at night. They tied me up and started physically assaulting me.
Then, in turn, they started groping and molesting me.
When a passerby tried to intervene, they threatened to hit me again and to continue molesting me elsewhere.
gender violence, sexual violence, rape, social stigma, social pressure, the street
It didn’t feel normal or spontaneous.
Between being scolded by your conservative [female] relative for doing something “immodest” and listening to your friends whispering about touching certain [private] areas on maids’ and female cousins’ bodies, you eventually learn to associate the opposite sex’s body with shame.
There has got to be something shameful about it.
How are you, Sara?
How are you doing, dear?
Sara is one of a kind.
She’s extremely well-mannered.
No one is perfect but Allah, of course.
But you’re honest, kind, and well-mannered.
But you’re not perfect.
Because she wanted her own place.
She wanted to live.
That’s what a marriage contract was to her: freedom.