The writer, Ekta Somera.
I SAT with my thoughts for a long while before writing this. I thought about the women who have inspired me, the women who challenged the ideals that confined them, and those who have overcome obstacles simply to live their lives with dignity. Many of these women have been criticised for refusing to remain within the boundaries society created for them.
Then I began thinking about the women who have criticised me, the women whose words and actions caused me pain, the kind of pain that forced me into a confinement of my own. Women supporting women should not simply be a phrase we repeat. It should be a verb. It should be something we actively practise. Our actions should give meaning to those words.
From the time I was a little girl, there was an ambition inside of me that I could not fully understand. I read books that made me feel as if there was something more to life than what we were taught at school. Yet society often makes you feel as if there is something wrong with you when you do not follow the expected path.
I am blessed to have grown up surrounded by women who worked, supported their families and accomplished things without needing a man beside them. They taught me independence, and most importantly, they never asked me to be anything other than myself.
