Nabila Tabassum Chowdhury > Recent Status Updates

"I am in love with the Scottish Highlands. If there is a more beautiful place on Earth, I have yet to find it."

"We still finish each other's sentences but these days we get them wrong."

"Time can change relationships like the sea reshapes the sand."

"“Every street in this city is a carefully cultivated allergen corridor...Female trees produce fruit. Fruit falls, it makes messes, it attracts vermin. So most trees planted in urban areas are male. They put out pollen with no female trees to absorb it, so it ends up in the air instead.”"

"Zero criminal history did not mean he was safe. George didn't have a criminal history either- until he did."

"My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, 'Yes, there's a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.' All of us, women and men, must do better."

"Feminist: a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes."

"Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture."

"What is the point of culture? Culture functions ultimately to ensure the preservation and continuity of a people."

"But bottom power is not power at all, because the woman with bottom power is actually not powerful; she just has a good route to tap another person's power."

"Men need to speak out in all of these ostensibly small situations."

"Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. This comes, I think, from the insecurity triggered by how boys are brought up, how their sense of self- worth is diminished if they are not 'naturally' in charge as men."

"For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution to the problem should acknowledge that."

"Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general- but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded."

"Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender, or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable."

"I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be."

"Many of us think that the less feminine a woman appears, the more likely she is to be taken seriously."

"I am trying to unlearn many lessons of gender I internalized while growing up. But I sometimes still feel vulnerable in the face of gender expectations."

"What if, in raising children, we focus on ability instead of gender? What if we focus on interest instead of gender?"

"Today, there are more opportunities for women than there were during my grandmother's time, because of changes in policy and law, which are very important. But what matters even more is our attitude, our mindset."

"The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations."

"We teach girls shame. Close your legs. Cover yourself. We make them feel as though by being born female, they are already guilty of something."

"We teach females that in relationships, compromise is what a woman is more likely to do."

'It is easy to say, 'But women can just say no to all this.' But the reality is more difficult, more complex. We are all social beings. We internalize ideas from our socialization."

"Marriage can be a good thing, a source of joy, love and mutual support. But why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage, yet we don't teach boys to do the same?"

"And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller."

"The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is."

"We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian- speak, a hard man."

"Gender matters everywhere in the world. And I would like today to ask that we should begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently."

"Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. But I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to remake themselves for the better."