So Don't Want To Be The Butterfly!

Today while discussing something with a friend, he came up with this analogy that a butterfly represents a girl so well. He thought it would be so apt to say that a girl child is as beautiful as a butterfly. A very sweet thought one would think. But I  was so very surprised by my reaction to this! I hated that comparison! All my feminist instincts were totally ready for battle! I launched into this very very vehement and emotional argument with him about why this is wrong at so many levels!

We don't want to be seen as beautiful and fragile anymore! Because we may be blessed with beauty but we are most definitely not fragile! And if we are perceived to be so , we definitely do Not want to be that way! We want to be able to walk shoulder to shoulder with our men folk without feeling inferior in any way! Men and women together make this world. No man could do it alone! (Nor am I saying that a woman could!)

And if you think that you would promote the idea of appreciating a girl child in the society by comparing her to a butterfly, well please do not do so thinking that the butterfly is just this pretty and super-delicate insect whose only purpose in life is to make the world look beautiful. Because I bet the butterfly would very much resent that, considering how tough it's life is!! 

Beautiful as they are, the butterflies have to work so hard as a specie to protect themselves from all kinds of predators! Just so that they can maintain the balance on this earth and keep spreading the pollen everywhere they go. To think that the life of a girl is as bad as that? Everyone wants to catch a pretty butterfly  and show it off to others. Even children think it's fun to catch butterflies and put them in jars or stick them in books! Really!? How can anyone do that first of all?! And how can any human think like that about another human?!  We are not trophies, we are not burdens, we are just as human as any man in this world.

Most women are hardworking, patient, resilient, persistent and great at time management, planning and organizing - be they working the farms, running their own homes or running multi million dollar businesses! And all of us have strengths and weaknesses like any man that exists on this earth. Then why do people (and when I say people, I mean a whole lot of men as well as women) consider that women need 'burkha',  they need to be protected, they are something to show off, they have to behave in such and such way only. Why is it that a woman who speaks her mind is considered forward (in it's most negative sense)!

If people stopped comparing women with butterflies wouldn't it help stop rape and abuse! It isn't that women need to be protected. Women need to be respected. We should have the same rights as men. Why is it that men in so many cultures show off their bodies any how they please but no way can a woman do the same? Men run on the streets, parks and other public places in shorts and often shirtless. But even in the most modern of Western Societies a woman cannot get away with something like that!

In this society, it is okay for men to have any vices like boozing, smoking and even sleeping around! In fact, not only do they go scott free but often they are found bragging about such 'conquests' among other men! And the worst thing I have heard, is from women saying "He is a Man." as if that is his excuse! 

No I don't want to be a butterfly because I do not want to worry about the predators lurking around. I do not want to live in fear. I do not want to be raped or mentally undressed by anyone. I do not want to have to work twice as hard to get where a man would get in the work place just because its a "man's" world. I want to have the same chances and opportunities as men do. The same freedom, the same respect, love and affection. I want to enjoy my life on this beautiful earth just like every human has a right to!

Photo Credit: 
http://www.shootingfilm.net/2014/10/butterfly-fly-away.html