‘We are everything we are and want to be’
SABIKA ABBAS NAQVI, gender rights Activist, delhi, 23
Iam a nasty woman. You’ve tried, witch hunted and burnt us at stake but were not able to erase our presence or the fruits of our struggle from the pages which were written by men, of men, for men. I am so nasty that I will break the ceiling of caste, class, religion, and colour to shine and reclaim my body! I will pull out the honour you have put inside my vagina and flush it down the fanciest loo. Nasty women have written new chapters with ink made out of their red, satanic menstrual blood. We snatched our right to be humans, to vote, to dance, to study, to work, to abort, to birth, to wear, to live, to breathe—our right to be. We are nasty workers who will over throw your diktat of unequal pay. We are dancers, singers and actors who will create figures on stage and otherwise. We are sex workers who don’t need your hollow definitions of honour. We will create another generation of nasty people to overtake your discrimination. We will be nasty gay, trans, queer, queens and anything that defines me. In my wildness, I will invent my own identity and realise my own self. Is it not cooler and more human to be nasty than to be oppressive carriers of hollow patriarchy that manifests itself in every phase of my life because you think I am a lesser human (or not even a human)? I am nasty and am proud of it.