Remember when you cried at the gates?
Generational traumas carried on…our shared burden.
Oh gatekeepers,
Sometimes I wonder what your childhood was like.
Was it a childhood filled with repression? Has it ever occurred to you that you might have been a victim of repression?
Did you secretly wish you were not limited because of your gender?
Did you willingly become a gatekeeper?
Who inducted you into this society? Was it our society itself?
Do you secretly resent your “inductor”?
Are you afraid of losing your role as a gatekeeper for fear of losing what you have come to believe is your sole purpose in life?
Do you fear that if you cannot remain a gatekeeper, you would suffer from an identity crisis?
What keeps you up at night?
Do you sometimes yearn for freedom?
Do you secretly wish there was more to your life?
Do you envy women who now have the privilege of getting an education beyond secondary school?
When you utter sentences like “why should a woman pursue a PhD /advanced degree”, do you really mean that or is that jealousy in a different form?
When you ask why a woman bothers to work, do you feel contempt for her goal and ability to be independent?
Do you hurt from silencing a rape victim so there can be “peace” in the family?
Do you genuinely want to protect the perpetrators of sexual/physical assault?
When you are at death’s doors and these moments flash before your eyes, are you certain that in every case, your actions were in the best interest of the victim? Do you regret anything and beg for forgiveness?
Do you secretly weep for women you have advised to remain in abusive marriages?
Do you secretly weep for women you have told can’t do better than their unfaithful marriages?
Do you feel remorse when you instantly blame the woman for childlessness?
Do you secretly envy women who have challenged the status quo and gone to dream bigger?
Do you secretly weep for widows you have dehumanized by locking them up, shaving their heads, and sometimes blaming them for their husband’s death?
Do you feel guilty about your part in contributing to a widow’s homelessness?
Do you think you need to make women feel powerless for you to continue to feel like you have relevance in this world?
Do you secretly resent women who broke their shackles and refused to swear the gatekeepers’ oath? Do you resent them for looking like their steps are lighter because they do not carry the weight of being a gatekeeper?
Do you want to be free of this burden?
How can we free you and your successors from these shackles?
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, please check out some of my previously published stories.
