Break The Stereotype or Become The Stereotype By Shamindri De Sayrah

What if she doesn’t want to get married? So what?

What if she doesn’t want to be a mother? It’s her decision.

What if she wants to be a mother alone? She doesn’t need anybody else.

What if she choses education over having a family? Why doesn’t she deserve a good education?

What if she chooses to love a woman? She’s better off.

What if she decides, she’s not a she anymore? It’s their life.

Why must women stick to the stereotypes and labels that society is constantly holding them down with? What is it about this world that makes people so afraid to see a woman succeed? And someone tell me why almost every person out there believes that a woman’s only road to happiness begins with marriage and ends with a child? 

We live in the 21st century, it’s time to open your eyes, more importantly, it’s time to open the eyes of those who came before us, and the women of the next generation. It is our duty to show the young girls who are just like us that they have a choice, unlike the one’s our parents were never given. Back then if you told your mother “Hey ma, btw I’m never going to get married or have kids”, she’d drag you to a priest or find you a matchmaker, but like I said, we’re lucky to be living in time when things have somewhat eased up. At least now, you can decide for yourself how you wanna live your life, and who you want to live it with. 

Yes, things are still difficult, it’s true, we are constantly labelled only as mother, caregiver, homemaker, etc, but no one asks, what do we want? Sri Lankan women live with the constant fear that no matter what they do they will be never be good enough for their families, so some become the perfect Sri Lankan family, then there are those Sri Lankan families that at the simple mention at one of the above will have you excommunicated, and then there are those lucky few whose families will love and accept them no matter what. It is because of the messed up mindsets that society has that people tend to think that women fending for themself or being educated or being a single mother or loving who they chose is wrong. That’s why it is our job to make sure the next generation doesn’t know the criticisms or the stereotypes or the nagging that we face. Then again in Sri Lanka, nagging from relatives will never stop. 

Change the narrative, change the way people think, and change the way people view and define women.