From the story of origin
From where the mankind started
Eve came from the rib of Adam
Thus not an equal born.

She led him to the forbidden fruit
So a temptress was born
Then came Cain & Abel
Brothers up in arms
Driven by mad love for a woman
Thus a seductress was born

In Samson and Delilah's story
As his hair was shorn
A woman stooped to a new low
And a betrayer was born

Down the line
In the annuls of time
Still breathes a Cleopetra
And a Helen of Troy,
Women for whom wars were fought
Men bled and died
All along women were nothing
A temptress, a seductress
A cheater, a betrayer
A bloody liar
Evil. Evil. Evil
To the hell-fire born

And through the times
Women were clothed and coiffed,
Declared beautiful and ugly
Virgin and fallen
Moral and immoral
As per the man's desire and diktat

From being burnt on funeral pyres
To the tonsured tresses
From purging by fire
To the white widow dresses
A woman was taken from a man's rib
Thus an unequal born

With the advent of modern ages
She was pushed out of the home
To the office,
To the runway,
To the hostel dorm,
And declared an emancipated species
A new woman was born

With shorter dresses,
Nude models on men's magazines
Selling cigarettes to cars
In no time the emancipated woman
Pandering to voyeuristic fantasies
Into a sex-symbol was born
.
.
.And then women were witches too

Shazia Kamili