Sara was lying there, on the hospital bed, in between life and death. Her slit wrists were wrapped in bandages and attached to the IV drip. Her beautiful, pale face was expressionless, her sunken eyes staring at the blank ceiling. Friends and family were devastated. Nobody knew her reasons for wanting to put an end to her life. Nobody knew the traumatic experiences she’d lived throughout her childhood that led her to harm herself. Nobody knew that the person responsible was sitting in the waiting room, calling himself Sara’s father.
Read MoreMy grandparent’s house. A typical summer day. Like any typical french family, at 8:00PM, we sit comfortably on the couch to watch the “20H”, the news broadcast with the largest audience in France. I began to notice that all the main speakers, the guests, or experts, were men. But the possibility of the underrepresentation of women on television, on our couch at 8:00pm on a Saturday evening, did not seem like such a pressing issue. Back then, I did not realize how wrong I was.
Read MoreShe stared at herself in the mirror, her hijab tightened leaving no strands of hair visible and her manteau, oversized and loose, covering her figure. Tears running down her flushed, makeup-less, cheeks as she trembles questioning: “Why?” She blamed herself for this tragedy and so did they. Her family accused her of stealing their honour, the khales (aunts) gossiped giving her dirty looks, the jury and her entire country turned their back on her. Instead of compassion, she received coldness. As for him, he roams freely, head held high like he has nothing to be ashamed of.
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