Sita and Draupadi

Trigger Warning- Misogyny

In every situation you have a choice, my girl,

You have the choice to be Sita

Or to be Draupadi.

Remember, you have a choice.

You can be people’s ideal woman,

Submissive, whose power they have forgotten,

Whom they have reduced to an idol of sacrifice,

Whose anger seems to have a vanished

Who is now a plot-device,

In the story of men.

when someone screams at you, makes you feel lesser-

when they lord over you, hold safety hostage,

when they pull you down, and think they can use you

as a means to an end, my girl,

remember you have a choice-

Sita or Draupadi.

You can be the ideal woman, yes,

Or you can be the woman they look down upon,

Whom they call the destroyer even as they worship her,

At whose feet they lay the sins of men

Whom they riddiculue,

But remember she stood up for herself when no one else did,

And on stood up she did-

Now they recall her as the one who set in motion,

The victory of good over evil,

When they reduced one to an idol, the other they called evil,

Two women, both significant in the destruction of those who would do harm,

Yet one is remembered as a wife and nothing else,

And another as a woman whose pride collapsed dynatises.

You can be either,

But know in the world of men,

There is no way you are righteous,

So do what’s best for you, what you feel is right and just,

We, women, have always been Durga-

Even if they only reduce us to Sita and Draupadi.

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