Women should be free to choose

All women should have the right to choose their own future, they should never be forced into something they don’t feel right about. Some women still get forced to marry at a young age when they want to study. Women still don’t get enough freedom within their families, and even if they do they don’t get enough freedom in society. We constantly get told by others what to wear, what to do and what not to even though it’s irrelevant to anything with their lives.

All women must get enough freedom to first understand and love themselves before being forced into relationships and traditions where they need to love others first.

A friend of mine was not allowed to go to school and study because she was eve-teased and stalked by few bad men outside her school.

All she used to do was walk her way from home to school, and instead of concentrating in her studies she was mostly worried about how she would avoid these men on her way back. After having enough of their disturbance, she complained to her parents. Instead of them taking actions against these men, they forced her to stop studying and stay at home. She did not get enough freedom to live and study freely from her parents nor did she get any freedom from the society.

Why are such rules only applicable to women? Why are women told to learn how to cook and keep things well-ordered from an early age while men are never told to start earning money from their early age?

Even though I get enough freedom from my family and my small group of friends, I expect all women to get them as well. Someday they will, we should never stop hoping.

- The reader is a student based in Dubai.