If there is one thing that's holding back women in India, it is the need for protection that has been instilled in them since childhood. We are told that we're delicate, that we are vulnerable, and that we should always be careful. Living life on the edge is never an option for us, unless of course a man pledges us his protection. We're only allowed to enter territory that is marked with a hundred signboards screaming 'safe'; unless we have male company. We are Goddesses, we are precious, we are...diamonds.
Let us be, let us fend for ourselves. Let us fall, let us roughen our soft edges. I'd rather be viewed as a stone than a diamond if being a diamond meant living my life passively. If I could change one thing in my society to advance women's right, this would be it.
Let us be stones."
- Priyal, India