She is a woman
She's not everything you want her to be
Respect is not to be demanded
It should come naturally
Their intelligence is spiced with beauty
Filled with virtues of integrity and patience

You may think she's fragile but she can knock you down anytime
The universe is within her...she can make her own decisions
She's not an object for you to satisfy your lust with..
You can feel warmth and affection from her smile

I hope things were better now,
Where everyone is happy and contented
Where women dont have to carry pepper sprays in their handbags everytime they go out..
Just for one day...try to imagine yourself in their shoes

So, lets be thankful for all the women present in our lives
WHo have touched and inspired us
Believed in us and taught us to be resilient
Cause we men can never survive without them in our lives

TIME HAS COME
TO PUT ON OUR SKIN OF COURAGE
TO BE THE FIRSTS
UNTIL THERE ARE NO MORE FIRSTS
NO MORE LEFT BEHINDS
UNTIL OUR QUANTITY PARS QUALITY

THE RACE IS ON
LET’S OPEN OUR EYES
OUR MINDS UNBIASED
TO THE MANY OPPORTUNITIES
THOSE VAST POSITIVITIES

YES WE CAN
BE BOLD
SO LET’S USE OUR VOICES

YES WE CAN
BE INSPIRED AND INSPIRE
TO BE BIGGER
TO DREAM FRESHER

YES WE CAN
BE FEARLESS
SO OUR DAUGHTERS CAN BE LIMITLESS

YES WE CAN

ON OUR MARKS

GET SET

LET’S GO

BE BOLD FOR CHANGE

                                © Belema .S. Ekine

Women aren't defined by their beauty. Woman are strong! And a woman can equally do the same things a man can do. Woman have evolved from following the idea of cult of domesticity and fearing to speak out but today we can be anything we set our minds too. Today is the day where we put an end to being quiet even when we know the answer like we were trained to. Today is the day where we compliment each others body before questioning our own beauty. Instead of body shaming we should embrace the fact that all women are different. Women shouldn't be afraid to wear anything because women are not property. As a society we shouldn't blame women for getting **** because we wore "something revealing". Instead we should all raise men and women the same !

Born again
I have been born a hundred times but like the inches between my thighs it is never quite enough
I was born this morning I woke up mourning my flawed skin but when I use cover up it is not jut the blemishes I'm hiding.
Born again into highschool and by the second hour it is your sweet sixteen,
And you're  jealous fifty girls bodies you've seen.
Born again and by the end of the day, you've graduated from seven minuets in heaven
by now you're more comfortable with showing photos of your naked body than your naked face.  
Born into the whispers of *** deprived teenage males who's idea of a good tale is talking about the circumference of a women's chest
and if she's a size zero,
Well I have zero tolerance for unrealistic standards.
Speaking of unrealistic since when was it real for a women only to feel worthy to a man when's she's altered her body.
I grew up in a society with make up adds on tv full of women who have inches between their knees and my peers beg please,
Please,
Please can I look like that as if photoshop could be found In our makeup bags.
Born again into a mans world where some women are still underpaid due to the gender they did not choose to be.
Where third world girls cannot go to school because they obviously cannot handle the task of picking up a tool as difficult as a pencil?
They die again.
We die again
and again without the enlightenment of knowing that we were born with
hairy legs,
crooked teeth,
oily skin
and braless.
We were born worthy and real,
we die to feel acceptance and love and somewhere in between we give up loving ourselves
and we accept that as were born to believe that that's the only way to live.
Many believe that suffrage ended yet we still suffer,
but it's our choice to endure the pain.
Be born again but this time be born in the rain unafraid of your make up running down your face.
Wash it off.
Be born again.

science tells you
growing into a woman
means a fuller chest and
hips just beginning to smile.
it's the new smell of blood.
it's thoughts fermenting
from grapes to wine.

art shows you
becoming a woman
is a series of quiet
revolutions.
a blessing to bear.
taking a little girl's hand.
leading her into
a great Somewhere.
wiping her tears
because she is afraid.

but logic and art are two
halves of one fruit.
we as humans are living proof.
with rational minds.
with paint on our hands.

so listen to yourself.

you will realize
becoming a woman
is a miracle.
a gift. a grace.
a poem dedicated to all
the little girls
and the women that screamed
for them.

The strength bestowed upon us can turn into a heavy burden,
One which our scrawny shoulders sometimes can't carry,
Or our tired backs from entering the journey of womanhood,
Or even our bruised and battered souls that continue to brave on along this path of emotional, mental and even physical scaring we live to bear.

Maybe being a woman means I'm supposed to be inferior to my other half,
Or bowing to him as if he had turned into a humanly form of a deity that I am supposed to worship.

Listen!
I am a person,
I am that face society either frowns or smiles upon,
I break,
I soldier on,
I cry,
I laugh...
and boy, is it quite an interesting journey of self-realisation.

But at the end of the day,
I want to raise my voice to the sound of jubilance,
Not to news of someone getting *****;
a girl not going to school because she is not 'smart enough';
a cry from the brutality at the hands of another;
another statistic telling us the measure of a woman, when compared to a man;
another dream dying because your belief in yourself and the capabilities you possess has become a distortion of what everyone believes to be 'right/wrong'

You'll be given varying descriptions,
And that's okay...
...because

YOU ARE HUMAN!