{"id":2109,"date":"2013-10-11T10:13:33","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T04:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/?p=2109"},"modified":"2014-02-07T11:14:07","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T05:44:07","slug":"oct-11-what-makes-you-a-man-and-me-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/oct-11-what-makes-you-a-man-and-me-a-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Oct 11: What Makes You A Man, and Me A Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, we celebrate the International Day Of The Girl Child<\/a>. ASAP’s Youth Champions will be writing a series of articles on the barriers and challenges that young girls and women face in patriarchal societies. We will run this series for a week starting today.<\/em><\/p>\n

We begin with Sarah Soysa (Sri Lanka), who in this work of creative non-fiction, tells true stories of women and girls she knows. This blog is also a series of edicts by which women are forced to define themselves, limit their potentials and restrict their lives.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When I was in the primary class I wasn\u2019t allowed to go out and cycle after 5 pm. But the boys could.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b>\u201cYou are a girl<\/i><\/b>, you shouldn\u2019t be cycling in evenings!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0****<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

When I was in school I couldn\u2019t go on a two day trip with my school friends.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIts two days too risky! You are a girl.<\/b> Girls don\u2019t stay out at night!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All the boys in the class went on the trip! But I too loved traveling I want to be a traveler one day!<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t sit with your legs wide apart , you shouldn\u2019t walk alone at night, you shouldn\u2019t dance and jump too much, BEHAVE YOUSRSLEF!! Sit properly walk like a lady don\u2019t make noises when you walk like bad women!!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/i>My grand ma used to scream at me! I am a girl<\/b> I am not supposed to behave like that!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I wanted to study engineering!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWHAT? You are a girl<\/b>\u2026 study arts, study fashion designing, cookery, study literature, you can\u2019t have a good family life being an engineer and you should have time for your family! Men like to marry teachers; they have more time to spend with their families!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I am a teacher!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I am studying for my bachelors and I was \u201cragged\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cOh you slut you wear skirts above your knee? You want to get boys attracted to have sex with them? Remove your underwear and show it to us! You like showing it don\u2019t you??\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/i>I was surrounded by a group of boys! And I was taught that<\/b> boys have uncontrollable feelings and they could do anything they want. Unlike girls. I removed my underwear with tears!<\/p>\n

\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I travel by bus. When I am seated, I always squeeze myself to a side and gave more space to the men who sit next to me in order to avoid getting touched or rubbed against.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i>\u201cYou are a woman<\/i><\/b> , men are bigger in size, they need more space, they sit the way they want. Girls shouldn\u2019t sit with their legs wide apart. If they touch you it\u2019s your fault you must have dressed something revealing or done something bad!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0****<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I was going out with this guy when I was 26.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSo\u2026 how many boy friends have you had?<\/i><\/p>\n

Have you had sex? Don\u2019t lie? Where did you have sex at? <\/i><\/p>\n

So you know a lot about sex huh? <\/i><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to talk about my sexual relationships.\u00a0I am a guy<\/b>. We can do anything and have a bath and clean ourselves and come home! But you women are dirty<\/b>!!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was my wedding night!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou whore you don\u2019t bleed? How many men have you had sex with? This is a disgrace!! I am going to tell everybody and shame you! DIRTY FILTHY WOMAN<\/b>!!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0****<\/p>\n

My boyfriend masturbates looking at his friends! Men are like that! They can do those kinds of things thinking and looking at anybody they like!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWhy have you liked this boy\u2019s pictures on Facebook you dirty disgusting woman?? You are planning to sleep with him no? How disgusting you are!! I should have known better before dating someone like you! You should only look at my pictures and like my pictures not other men\u2019s pictures!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I stayed silent! He is a man he must be correct! I am a woman<\/b> and should behave myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry baby I will never do that again!!\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0****<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I got married. He hits me everyday mentioning that I didn\u2019t bleed on the first night! Even in front of our children. I can\u2019t complain to the police.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cGood women<\/i><\/b> who love their families and who are respectable don\u2019t give their problems out!<\/i> \u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I will bear this all up that\u2019s what my mother did\u2026.<\/b><\/p>\n

Sarah Soysa along with Dakshitha Wickremaratne, also started the new photo campaign “It’s Her Right.<\/a>”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, we celebrate the International Day Of The Girl Child. ASAP’s Youth Champions will be writing a series of articles on the barriers and challenges that young girls and women face in patriarchal societies. We will run this series for a week starting today. We begin with Sarah Soysa (Sri Lanka), who in this work…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[270,3,299,279,414],"tags":[378],"class_list":["post-2109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy","category-archives","category-blogs-by-youth-champions","category-events","category-oct-11-international-conferences","tag-international-day-of-the-girl-child"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/blog-featured-image-logo.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O7nG-y1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2109"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2113,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2109\/revisions\/2113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asap-asia.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}