My Un-gendered world
By Malaika Elias
My ungendered world is my dream world, my safe world, my goal world- yet an unattainable world.
My ungendered world is where the politics of my body are not up for discussion among the enforcers of the male patriarchy and left in the hands and useless jargon of senseless politicians.
Where people like Bell Hooks, Nikki Giovanni and Audre Lorde are the leaders of my education.
Where poor women internationally no longer bleed to death in a desperate attempt to abort a child where abortion is rendered illegal and not the mother’s choice.
Where women’s bodies were no longer commodified.
Where it is NEVER “her fault”.
Where the hyper masculinity of our kings would not dare justify the erasure and domestic violence of our QUEENS.
Where girls aren’t persecuted like Malala Yousafzai for their desire and right to have an education.
Where education itself is no longer a privilege but a right.
Where the public/private dichotomy doesn’t dictate the daily lives of so many disempowered women.
Where women all across the globe are economically empowered.
Where more women were in STEM fields.
Where fighting hateful anti-abortion rhetoric and speaking up doesn’t deem me a raging, bra-burning, neurotic, ‘feminist’.
Where my intellectual capacity doesn’t intimidate my male counterparts.
Where I am not bound by societally proclaimed cultural norms and expectations.
Where unwanted baby girls aren’t left by the dumpster and reduced to the literal worthlessness that is garbage.
Where the terms ‘feminism’ and ‘equality’ might finally be synonymous.
Where the povertization of women and children no longer binds the impoverished to sweat shops and life threatening injury to fulfill the capitalistic desires of the West.
A world where breast feeding and menstruation are celebrated as integral roles to the cycle of life.
Where we no longer suffer wage gaps and our worth no longer has a dollar sign attached to it.
Where girls were no longer left vulnerable to the anxiety provoking stereotype threat which inhibits their brilliance.
Where female genital mutilation is an ugly mutilation of morality.
Where my words and thoughts are as prolific as my curves and aesthetics.
Where HER story is written-where MY story is heard.
A world where no man or system can invalidate who I am or what I aspire to be.
Where my body isn’t objectified, sexualized, disenfranchised and degraded by many of my brothers in the music industry. Particularly the hip hop industry- where the purpose of this music at its inception was to decolonize, liberate and unite.
My ungendered world would have my intersectionality be the forefront of my positive radiance opposed to the tool for fighting the poisonous negativity of the male patriarchy. It is the world where my body is sacred in everyone’s eyes. No longer will we desecrate and objectify a woman’s body for commercial purposes. Women will not be infantilized for the pleasure of grown men and to send the subliminal message that women are fragile and unintelligent hence needing to be treated as children.
I envision a world where body disorders and dysmorphia which disproportionally impact female youth who so desperately wish to fit the perfect beauty ideal are eradicated.
Women will be equally represented in political and judicial spaces and will work in conjunction with men on global issues of all calibers.
Women will finally make the policies that impact them the most.
I envision a world where the desired power dominance derived from the mentality that women should be submissive no longer leads to sexual and domestic violence against women.
Finally, my ungendered world is one where everyone sees me as a phenomenal woman, phenomenally me.