malikaidith

[malikaidith]

I'm from watching Woman of the Hour and it brings to light the devastating reality that, for many women, a sense of physical and emotional safety is often out of reach, especially in their encounters with men. It's heart-wrenching that women constantly have to worry about their safety in the most ordinary situations, hoping that an interaction with a man won’t end with them getting hurt, manipulated, or even killed. Watching this film, you're faced with a blunt, uncomfortable truth: that women often navigate life with a lingering sense of dread, a hope that every man they meet will turn out to be "safe," but always carrying the terrible weight of possibility that he won’t be. It reveals how, in these situations, women are forced to read every shift in body language, every change in tone, every uncomfortable glance, constantly calculating how to respond so they can make it home alive. The awareness of an energy shift, of a moment when a man’s demeanor turns from kind to cold, or when a friendly conversation starts feeling forced and tense, is a brutal reality. Women feel that change instinctively, and the unease can quickly transform from discomfort into fear, knowing that the wrong word, the wrong look, or the wrong reaction could set off a chain of events that end in violence. It's a tragic and exhausting experience, one that's deeply ingrained in the female experience.The fact that women feel pressure to "entertain" men, to always appear sweet, polite, or funny, is itself exhausting, often feeling more like survival than simple social interaction. It's heartbreaking that so many women find themselves in situations where they have to be agreeable, even when it’s uncomfortable, because showing irritation or anger could be dangerous. They might go as far as to sleep with someone simply because he’s "nice," or out of pity, feeling they owe it to him to avoid confrontation, and because they have been conditioned to see politeness as a form of safety.

The concept of the "friend zone" has often been wielded as a tool of emotional pressure, shaping a narrative where men feel entitled to romantic or sexual interest from women simply because they’ve been "nice" or "supportive." It’s as if the term was created to frame kindness and friendship as some kind of down payment on a relationship. For some men, the "friend zone" suggests that a woman’s friendship alone isn't enough and that, if she doesn’t eventually “pay back” his kindness with romance or intimacy, she’s somehow wronging him. This idea implies a transactional approach to relationships, where the efforts made to be close to a woman such as acts of kindness, companionship, or attention,..are seen as investments that ought to yield a "reward."

The "friend zone" narrative creates a damaging mindset, one that can foster resentment and blame against women for setting boundaries or valuing a man’s friendship without romantic interest. It suggests that by not reciprocating feelings, women are “leading men on” or being ungrateful, when in reality, they’re simply respecting their own feelings and agency. The pressure this creates is unfair, reducing a woman’s worth to her willingness to return affection, regardless of her own emotions, and dismissing the validity of any friendship that isn’t rooted in romance or sexual attraction.

This concept reinforces the notion that women "owe" men something for being present in their lives, which can be deeply manipulative and guilt-inducing. It suggests that if a woman is not romantically interested, she’s rejecting more than just romantic involvement, she’s failing in her role as a friend. The expectation underlying the "friend zone" myth pressures women to question their boundaries and can lead them to feel guilty or even question their own self-worth. It’s a framework that shifts blame onto women for simply following their feelings, which in reality, should be met with respect and understanding, rather than frustration or entitlement. The "friend zone" is ultimately a term that devalues genuine friendship and imposes unfair expectations on women, making it all the more crucial to challenge and dismantle this narrative.

Watching this movie, you get to see a woman facing a life-threatening situation with Rodney Alcala(he's serial killer btw) She could sense the threat looming over her, yet she managed to escape by performing a heartbreaking act of self-preservation. ( I literally cried in this scene..the way she told him "it's okay baby. We are okay" after finding herself SA'd and bleeding and having wounds all over..)By being "sweet," keeping things calm, and even comforting him, she put his emotions first, all while fearing for her life, just to buy herself a chance to survive. That desperation, that terrifying choice to soothe someone even after they’ve committed unimaginable violence, is a survival tactic no one should ever have to use.

The film underscores just how exhausting and painful it is to carry this kind of fear, knowing that a man could become violent at any moment. To be forced into adopting a "safe" demeanor when threatened—acting as if everything is fine to keep the peace—becomes a tragic survival mechanism. It’s heartbreaking that many women have to live like this, balancing on a razor’s edge, feeling like their words and actions are constantly under scrutiny, needing to be careful, needing to be "nice." And it brings a painful realization to the surface: being a woman often means carrying an internalized set of survival strategies simply to coexist in a world that doesn’t always value or protect women’s safety and autonomy.

Watching this movie ,you see the courage and resilience women have to summon just to navigate their lives, but it’s a courage born of necessity, of the hard reality that, for many women, safety is never guaranteed. It’s a haunting, deeply tragic insight into how hard and, at times, terrifying it can be to simply exist as a woman. Anna Kendrick really played her role well, all women did. Then the producers and directors did well by not going so deep into the graphics. I would never get why some feel the need to display these act of violents like SA or torture. It's so unnecessary to show the viewers such. Sometimes I feel I'm losing my mind and my heart is breaking and I just wanna let out a blood curdling scream every single time I think about what happens to women. The injustice.

It’s devastating to witness how the justice system and law enforcement have, time and again, failed women by not addressing violence and abuse against them with the urgency and seriousness they deserve. For countless women, reporting incidents of rape, domestic violence, or even feeling unsafe doesn’t lead to protection or justice but often to dismissive attitudes, skepticism, and even blame. Far too often, women are questioned, doubted, or shamed for coming forward, as if they’re responsible for the crimes committed against them. This dismissive culture within law enforcement can make women feel as though their pain, fear, and trauma are trivial, as if their safety simply doesn’t matter as much. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating that cases of assault and abuse are frequently minimized or dismissed, leaving many women unprotected and without a path toward healing or justice.

[malikaidith]

I hate it when people are like “get out of your comfort zone” literally every single thing I do in my life feels like me getting out of my comfort zone

[malikaidith]

I wanted to fall so deeply in love with myself that I forgot what it ever felt like to be hurt. I wanted to love myself like the way I loved sunsets; purely and full of joy. I wanted to love myself like the way I loved you. But at times I get sick and think that you were right. That you rescued me. That I actually never loved myself. I loved the version you created. The version that you made easier to live with and tolerate.

How do I love myself when I don't even like the person i'm with when i'm alone? You loved the little frizzy hairs sprouting from my head to my stubby little toes. You loved the creases under my eyes that I got when I smiled. You found me so homesick for a world that I've never met and you gave me that. I wish you knew how silent the world becomes any time you'll hold me. How the voices go away.

I'm scared of the day when there will be no voices running around in my head. When i'll be all alone. When i'll pull the trigger and stop spilling the ink. I know anyone reading this will be like "Oh! But that's so unhealthy." How do I let myself love someone that much to redefine my whole existence? To be the one to decide whether i'll smile at my phone or drown in my tears. I would have gotten over it. I'm young and love will come to me. But don't you think if I knew how to I would?

I often feel like the times that I tell you I love you i'm lying because it has always been an understatement. Every love song is about you. I saw you in the books I read. I saw you in the movies I watched. Where the girl fell first but the guy fell harder. How do I forget that? How do I stop seeing parts of you in everything I loved and used to know. I can barely watch anything romantic or read anything that will strike those feelings in me. Because they remind me of you. The love we once had and shared. I just want to know where do broken lovers go? Where do broken hearts go?

Sometimes the things we love will kill us, but weren't we dying anyway? I forgive myself for being something that will eventually die. A perishable good fading out slowly. A little human. I wouldn't want to live in a world where you don't exist. I need to love you.

[malikaidith]

Leila Chatti, “Tea”

[malikaidith]

[malikaidith]

“Your healing is about you. It doesn’t need a stamp of approval. Don’t worry about how long it takes or how ugly it might seem. It is about you, and your wellbeing.”

— Unknown

[malikaidith]

“Forgive me if I don’t talk much at times. It’s loud enough in my head.”

— Unknown

[malikaidith]

When I’m comfortable around you, I start acting like SpongeBob.

[malikaidith]

think it's a deep consolation to know that spiders dream, that monkeys tease predators, that dolphins have accents, that lions can be scared silly by a lone mongoose, that otters hold hands, and ants bury their dead. that there isn't their life and our life. nor your life and my life. that it's just one teetering and endless thread and all of us, all of us, are entangled w it as deep as entanglement goes. v neat i think.

[malikaidith]

i love tumblr because of the close-knit community of girls who have never gotten over anything ever not even a little

[malikaidith]

when i have a crush i dont kick my feet or twirl my hair instead i am in my kitchen at 3am pacing in circles with my hands clasped behind my back like a middle-aged divorced detective haunted by a cold case he just cant crack

[malikaidith]

There are nights I cry so hard and my body aches and I shake and I have to put my head in my pillow so no one hears me. Some nights I turn the pillow around because of how wet it is. There are also nights I'm happy that you're happy and I think everything happens for a reason. A reason I just can't comprehend. There are also nights where I feel nothing at all but there's never a night you don't cross my mind. I wish I could say I'm grateful that you didn't choose me that it forced me to look inward and exclusively choose and rely on myself but i'll be lying. I look at you and I see a stranger in your eyes where I once saw a soulmate. I could say I almost hate you. For giving up on me. Giving up on us. For making me love you this much. I saw you becoming a stranger.

The hardest thing i'll ever do is walk away still loving you. Still my heart calling your name. Still looking at our old pictures and remembering how we used to be. Wishing we could go back to time when you'll hold my hand take me to see a river or wait for the lights to turn on when we cross the road or sit on the footbridge and hear you tell me your favourite stories. Walking away as I close my eyes just to feel your arms around me again. Still bringing up your name in every conversation like you never left. I remember the feeling I would get when you would call, text or come to see me and the world would stop for a minute or when you walked into a room and I will only see you. Now i just wonder if i'll ever get that feeling with someone new. I go to sleep happily knowing it's the only place i get to see you. In there, we talk for hours about the things we couldn't say back then.

I'm still writing you love poems. I'm still saving romantic tiktoks or reels before i'm hit with the reality I have no one to send them to. I'm still clinging onto who you used to be. But I need you to know that this is still my favourite story even if we didn't stick to the script we had planned. We did become villains in our own love story but I still see you with the light i once did.

I remember how I'd place my palms on your chin and you'll gently kiss them. How we talked about growing old together. But I guess love had other plans for us. We saw ourselves as different constellations in the universe. But who are we to defy the laws of love?

I feel like a snowflake tumbling wildly on its fall. I had hoped for a soft landing but I still swept up into it all. But the world is still beautiful regardless of its tragedies too. How are we different? The world whispers to me that i'll be okay. Maybe all I have to do is give it a little bit of time. Sometimes the hardest goodbye is when the love still lingers but it isn't enough to keep two people together. Goodbye to the good memories as well as bad, to our inside jokes and the ones we never quite got, to the what ifs and almosts and to the plans we ever made.

I just wanna go home. To the home where we didn't argue, where we weren't afraid of love, where leaving the house wasn't for an escape. Where breathing the same air felt natural and not timid. Where tears fell only from cutting onions and the only bruises came from paper cuts. I want to go home. To a place only my heart knows. To a place I belong the most.

In another world, parallel universe or a different life,we sit across from each other at the kitchen table going over the grocery list while taking coffee or re watching one of your movies as I struggle to keep you awake. I don't promise this will be the last poem. Is it bad that I'm gonna post this? Letting the whole world know how much I'm ruined.

[malikaidith]

i'm a solid 5 or liquid 6 depending on the day. I'm not the type to make neck turns as i walk down the road or make everyone stare as I walk into the room. Neither do I make someone want to cut me in the line nor carry my goods for me because of pretty privileges. I know I'm also not a sight for sore eyes. In summary I'm not the Heather to Conan Gray.

But I try to complement my looks in other ways. It might be being good at math or being a better poet. I try to be more kinder and loving as the sun rises. Doing these things becomes easier for me because people don't judge me based on my looks or expect me to be a perfect girl. For the ones in the spotlight it might be hard. For the 10s. Whatever they do all what people can see is their looks. They cannot make a mistake when it comes to looking pretty. That's all they've heard all their lives. "Oh, you are so pretty." "Luckily you are pretty." They have been continually told and taught that it's only looks that matters when it comes to them. Whatever they do, they have to be pretty.

For so long we have held on to the slogan of "I'm not like other girls." A guy will tell you that and you will automatically smile and giggle. We never seem to ask "And what's wrong with other girls?" We have cultivated a culture that makes girls want to be better than other girls. "Oh, I'm a natural. I don't use makeup." "Oh, I could never wear such." "Oh, my skin doesn't need any skin care routines." We put other girls down for things they do and make them feel that you are better directly or indirectly.

To think of it, the difference is what makes us alike. We are all different. We are the same because we are different. Other girls have their interests too. They have different laughter, different smiles, and different views to life. Other girls have different passions, different pains, different tastes in clothes, food, drinks, opinions and stories. Other girls want to be loved and appreciated. Other girls want to be treated well. Other girls wish to be like other girls.

Other girls aren't perfect and so am I. Telling me that I'm different from other girls isn't a compliment. In fact, I am like other girls and I love other girls.

@malikaspoetry

♡♡

[malikaidith]

'Boys will be boys'

A common phrase we were brought up with.

Being brought up as a girl I wasn't taught to be kind, to be respectful, to seek consent.

Why do I keep seeing posts that announce how parents should raise their boys and the values they should instill in them?

No one teaches parents how to raise their girls. Is it because they assume they will naturally know the do's and don't's? Or how they will be good wives and mothers? 

'You need to learn to cook, wash clothes, do chores or no man will want to marry you.'

In this 21st century where there are no gender roles, do you know how disgusting that is? Why aren't boys taught that? So that they be good husbands, they learn to help their wives.

When I ask for equal rights, why must you assume that I want to be treated like a man?

Why is my facial, arm and leg hair thought to be disgusting?

Why is my period blood revolting?

WOMEN BLEED! 

I bleed red. Not blue. Sanitary towels are not diapers. They soak red not blue. They soak blood not surf. Periods are normal. Showing them on the screen would be too.

Why should you be ashamed or hesitate to tell your father that you are bleeding? That when he comes home he can bring you another pack of pads? Why should that conversation be uncomfortable?

Next time, I will not open my sanitary towels slowly and gently so that the wrappers don't make a sound.

Come on, you know I am not eating a packet of crisps or biscuits or sweets inside a washroom.

I want to go to a shop, a supermarket and they don't wrap my pads, 

Can't I buy one and put it in my bag with everyone looking?

Why have we been taught to shame something that's so natural?

Baby, if you don't want to shave your leg/arm hair it's okay.

If you see nipples under my shirt it's because I got them. Nothing to be apologetic about.

'I can see your bra''I can see your panty line.'

If you are sexualizing anything on my body, YOU are the problem.

Yes. Because I have worn them and they were actually expensive.

Telling your daughter to change to a certain clothe because person A or B is coming, pathetic.

'You can't wear that. You know uncle Steve is coming.' And? So?

She is only a child. 

If I have to make my daughter dress in a certain way because a person is coming, that person is no longer coming.

Why do I get so worked out because I don't have cup sized boobs?Boobs get a little saggy and that's fine.

There's no muscle tissue in my boobs. Breasts are made of fat, duct and glands.

Sexy is not a size. Every calorie in your body is not a war. Your body is not a battleground. Your value is not measured in pounds.

Cellulite is not disgusting, stretch marks are okay. You don't need to have a flat tummy. You are human and that's natural.

Your body is not ruined. You are a tigress who has earned her stripes.

Work out because you love your body not because you hate it.

It is a dress. Not a yes. Wearing a short dress or revealing clothes suddenly makes me a slut? Because men can't control their dicks?

Women are considered fragile but I have never seen anything as easily wounded as a man's ego.

'Her fault she was raped.'

'Did you see what she had worn?'

'What is a lady doing outside that late?'

Rapists rape people. Not outfits.

What will you tell to our hijabi women? Or daughters who were abused by their fathers and uncles?

'Why are you dressed like a slut?'

No. Why are you thinking like a rapist?

Don't tell me how to dress. Teach them not to rape.

I don't wish for women to have power over men but themselves.

To mentally free yourself, you have to erase everything they taught you.

@malikaspoetry