When the world spoke of women,
it often did so in whispers, in margins, in “issues.”
We, most of us, do not take our lives for granted—
we cannot afford that ‘luxury.’
For us, survival breathes in everything:
the mundane and the colossal,
the daily bread and the broken glass.

Women the world over have been forced to wear injustice
like a second skin—
inequality as a garment we were given at birth,
discrimination as a language we learned before speech,
prejudice a mirror that never reflected our true face,
abuse a guest who would not leave,
as if all these ills were a pandemic
with no vaccine in sight.

In homes that should be sanctuaries,
in halls of learning that should illuminate,
in places of worship where mercy should dwell,
in workplaces that should build,
we have been asked to shrink.
Economically, politically, socially—
the question always the same:
How little space can you occupy?

Look closer.
These ills infect humanity entire.
But the deepest wound?
It is that they are perpetuated
by the very hands, the very systems,
the very voices sworn to protect,
sworn to heal,
sworn to know better.

What lives at the core of this sickness?
History answers with its long and terrible silence:
this has always been.
Always the daughter asked to be smaller.
Always the sister told to be quieter.
Always the mother expected to be endless.
Always the auntie who gave until empty.
Always the grandmother whose wisdom was called a tale.

Before we ask why,
we must name what is:
Not every woman will rise the same way.
Not every sister will carry the same sword.
Some will have courage forged in different fires.
Some will have wit sharpened on different stones.
Some will have prowess, fearlessness, integrity—
and some will still be learning to find their voice.

And yes—this too must be spoken:
Women have wounded women.
Dishonesty has passed between us like a plague.
Greed has worn our faces.
We have climbed on the backs of those who should have been our rising.
We have looked down when we should have reached down.
We have worn the make-like mentality
like armor against our own reflection.
We have, in our exhaustion and our fear,
lacked empathy for the one who most resembled us.

But hear this:

We are daughters who learned to mother ourselves.
We are siblings who fought for siblings who fought us.
We are mothers who bled so children might breathe.
We are aunties who held the world together with worn hands.
We are grandmothers whose silence was never empty—
it was filled with prayers for those not yet born.

We have been vulnerable
and still stood.
We have been broken
and still built.
We have been told no
and still became.

We are not asking for your permission.
We are not asking for your understanding.
We are telling you:

We have the right to be whole.
To be tender and terrible.
To be gentle and fierce.
To be wounded and walking.
To be every woman we were always meant to be.

And we will be.