To the women who still continue to bloom,
This letter is for you.
For the women who wake up every day carrying invisible battles in their chest, yet still choose to walk with grace. For the women who have been told to shrink, to soften up their voices, to accept what they were given, and to do what they were told to—but still resisted.
Thank you.
Thank you for continuing to fight even when the world insisted you should stay still. Who fought hard and stood against laws that forced us to conform. You, the women who opposed traditions that harm us and only benefit the men to please their sick and degrading views and fantasies. You have shown courage and endurance from the society that once preached it will protect us.
You fought with words that opened the eyes of many. With rallies and advocacies that paved the way for the rights we have now. And even if they fought with bloodied fists and audacity that still demand more power than they have, you fought back with resilience that quaked societal norms and questioned the authority they have over us.
Even if we started with a dark past, we still bloom in spaces that tried to bury us.
We bloom so that young girls can dream loudly, and not through 'what-ifs' or traditions holding them captive.
We bloom so we can become inspirations—someone to look back to.
We bloom because we were born to do so.
And to the women before us:
Thank you.
If it weren't for the path you have paved and the battles you endured because they thought our sex was a threat to their supremacy and power, we wouldn't taste the bare minimum we have today. The brave and rebellious side you have courageously shown to overcome bigotry against women, to overthrow laws and illegal ways to strip us off of our bodily autonomy and rights. We are still in the hands of the patriarchy, yet we have come far from the extremities the women before us endured during their time.
Let this letter commemorate the women we stand as now, the women we stand with, the women who stood before us, and the women who will stand after us. This fight isn't over, our story won't be over until society starts seeing us as humans rather than objects and experiments to play with. Let history carve our faces into statues, our stories written into pages, and our cries and voices bloom in the small cracks of the pavement we once walked on.
Because anything a man can do, a woman can do greater while bleeding.
