By Alia Shabir Hajini
I am a girl. And like every girl I know, I didn’t need anyone to sit me down and explain inequality to me. I absorbed it. I watched it. I lived it — in small, quiet moments that nobody names but everybody feels.
We live in a world that talks endlessly about feminism and gender equality. But we rarely ask the real question: why does this conversation keep needing to happen? Because the problem isn’t just out there — in laws, in workplaces, in politics. It lives inside us. It has been planted there, quietly, since childhood.
The root of patriarchy does not lie only with men. It lives in the women who have been told — for generations — that this is simply how things are. Women who were conditioned to believe they are meant to be more understanding, more patient, more sacrificing than men. Not because they are weak, but because they were never shown another way. They believed it because they were taught to believe it. And then, without meaning to, they passed it on.
Girls are expected to be more mature. More understanding. More forgiving of situations that boys are never asked to tolerate. And somewhere along the way, many of us internalize this — not as oppression, but as identity. We scroll past stories of domestic violence like they are just another update in our feed. But these are not just stories. They are lives. And the worst part is — we have been conditioned to accept them as normal.
When I worked with The Aarambh Organisation, I sat with young girls who were eager — genuinely eager — to learn about good touch and bad touch. And even as I taught them, I knew the hard truth: most of us have faced some form of harassment. Most of us carry it quietly. We are told that men have needs. That women must dress carefully, speak carefully, move carefully — because men’s actions are blamed on everything except their own minds and choices. The problem is never the mindset. It is always the woman. That has to change.
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Where the Silence Comes From
If we look closely at why a girl hesitates to speak up — even when something has genuinely harmed her — the answer usually isn’t fear of the world. It’s fear of home. We come from what I’d sarcastically call an “archaic” mindset — one that assigns a girl the job of guarding the family’s honor, while placing no equivalent burden on the boy. He can do as he pleases; she must carry the weight of everyone’s reputation. We see this double standard play out constantly — when a girl is assaulted, the questions turn on her: what was she wearing, why was she out, did she provoke it, was this a trap. Rarely does the same society ask the boy: why did you do this? The crime becomes her character flaw instead of his choice.
This is why the change has to begin at home — because home is where a girl first learns whether her voice is safe or dangerous. A girl raised in a home that teaches her to question patriarchy, to question what feels wrong, will carry that boldness with her — school and society can only sharpen it further. But a girl raised as the “honor keeper” of her family learns something else entirely: that her pain, if spoken aloud, is not her own — it becomes a threat to her family’s name. She learns to carry harassment, abuse, even violence, in silence, because speaking is framed not as justice but as dishonor. No school lecture, no NGO workshop, no law can undo that conditioning quickly, because by the time she reaches them, the silence has already been installed.
What Has to Change, and Where
If we look closely at girls who grow up bold, outspoken, unafraid to hold their own opinions, we often find something in common — a father, or a male figure in the family, who chose not to soften her, not to correct her into silence, but to stand behind her as she became who she wanted to be. This tells us something important: change doesn’t require waiting for society to shift first. It can start with one man in one household making a different choice.
And that choice is simple to state, even if it isn’t simple to live: whatever a household allows a son to do — speak his mind, raise his voice, make his own decisions — it must allow a daughter to do too, without hesitation, without exception. Not “she can, but quietly.” Not “he can, but she should think twice.” The same behavior, the same freedom, judged by the same standard.
Because society will not change first. The household has to change first — and everything else follows from there.
But not every girl has a father, or a home, willing to make that choice. For her, the household isn’t a source of support — it’s another wall of silence. This is where institutions must step in, not as an afterthought, but as a deliberate second line of defense. Schools, especially in underprivileged communities, need to do more than lecture on “good touch, bad touch” — they need sustained programs that build a girl’s confidence to speak, that teach her the actual, practical steps to seek help, and that make clear to her — repeatedly, not once — that reporting harm is not shameful, it is her right. Policies aimed at girls’ education and safety must specifically account for those without support at home, because equality on paper means nothing to a girl who doesn’t know she’s allowed to ask for it.
I won’t claim this is the single biggest problem our country faces — there are many. But I will say this: it cannot remain a problem we address only on paper. We make policies for gender equality, we announce programs, we hold conferences — but rarely do we go back and ask, honestly, whether any of it reached the girl who needed it. Whether a scheme meant to protect her actually changed anything for her, on the ground, in her home, in her school. If we are serious about this, we need less debate about who is right and who is wrong, and more scrutiny of outcomes — real statistics, real follow-up, real evidence that what we built on paper is standing on the ground. Because a policy that never reaches her is no different from having no policy at all.
Where It Begins
These thoughts are not mine alone. I am certain that every girl, at some point in her life, has asked herself: what needs to change? And the answer starts with us.
Stand for yourself. Live boldly. Do not let anyone define your limits or tell you what you are allowed to do with your own life. You are capable. You are enough.
But it cannot stop there. The worst thing a woman can do is witness another woman being silenced, being hurt, being diminished — and stay quiet because it isn’t happening to her. Because tomorrow, it might be.
Build communities. Speak up. Break the silence — not just for yourself, but for every girl who hasn’t found her voice yet.
Because gender equality doesn’t begin in parliament. It begins the moment one woman decides she will no longer look away.
About the Author– (Alia Shabir Hajini is a recent graduate in Political Science and Economics from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi. Originally from Kashmir, she writes on gender equality, public policy and social issues shaped by her lived experiences. She has volunteered with The Aarambh Organisation, working with underprivileged children on menstrual hygiene, personal safety and child protection. Through her writing, she aims to bridge academic learning with grassroots realities and advocate for meaningful social change.)
Disclaimer– (The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indian Masterminds. For feedback or queries, please write to [email protected].)
