A Girl Like Me

3600 or so miles away from me right now, is a girl, just like me, the same age, similar

dreams of making something of herself, and yet I am afforded privileges and opportunities

she only dreams of.

There is no difference between us, not any that matter at least, aside from the fact that I am

born here, in the UK, and she in Afghanistan, and that somehow determines the whole

trajectory of our lives.

It is not her fault, her only crime being born a woman under a regime intent on oppressing

her, and all of the other girls and women in the country she has to call home.

She is not allowed to speak, nor wear what she wants to, or even go out in public without a

male guardian.

All things I take for granted, all things that have been stripped away from her.

The girl has hopes, and wants, and desires. She has the potential to do great things, a

potential that may never be unlocked.

The people who are hellbent on setting women back in the western world, the ones who rally

against abortion often use the argument that the so-called ‘baby’ could have grown up to

cure cancer. Well so could that girl in Afghanistan, who yearns for an education that she has

been deprived of.

The concern is so selective that it is sickening. Some attribute more value to cells, than a

living, breathing human being, with the possibility to do great things, wasted not by any fault

of her own, but her oppressors.

Right now, there’s a woman in Kabul, who remembers a time when it was nothing like this, a

time where her home was much more progressive than even my own. Where she could

vote, and access higher education, and wear whatever she pleases. She may have been a

doctor, or a lawyer, or a judge. She probably looks on the time fondly, perhaps she mourns

it, and yet she has to live, knowing her granddaughter will not be able to experience the same.

She remembers a time before the interference of the US and consequently the Taliban, the

orchestrators of her lost freedom.

3600 or so miles away from me right now, is a girl, just like me, only she’s not like me at all,

for she has experienced things I wouldn’t dare dream of, human rights violations I cannot

bear to hear about.

She deserves to live a life like mine, she deserves better, because just like me, she’s

human, and her place of birth combined with the sex assigned on her birth certificate should

never change that.People may deny the need for feminism, they may say we have come far enough, but until every girl out there, every girl who is no less important than me, every girl who is restricted simply because of her gender, can afford the freedoms I have, the fight for women’s rights will always be necessary.

Written by, La’Keesha Stewart