Read this poem in Arabic.

• Who alone is carrying the responsibility of her five kids
• Struggling for a contented morsel of bread
• Who works and studies, and doesn't even ask me about her meagre salary
• Who takes the bus every day and tries to stay away from all these vile harassing hands
• Who is carrying the whole country upon her shoulders in the ministry, the company, the home and the street...and in all matters personal and discreet
• Tell them who you are, tell them: I’m strong and invincible
• I know how to be tough, but I also know how to be tender
• Children of my country I carry you in my eyes, girls and boys, men and women
• But do I have to always act docile to be called an Eastern woman
• Do I always have to say yes to be recognized as a true Egyptian woman?
• Work and travel and leadership positions I occupy
• And we’re still saying: it must be a woman badly driving that car!
• Trousers or skirts, as if the difference matters
• Please be quiet and let the girls’ better school grades tear you to tatters!
• I have a live thinking brain, and an able working hand, so beware of it!
• Inside the house or outside of it, my work takes strength, patience and intelligence
• I am just like you, son of my country, I work and tire and yearn for love
• My family, my country and those I love sit comfortably cross-legged in my heart
• You and I stand beside each other, helping to once again build our beautiful country
• But if you dare tell me: be quiet, sit down, obey what I’m telling you woman!
• I’ll quietly, yet smugly, tell you: see you soon then my little apprentice
• In the world wide halls of the international courts of justice...

Read other articles in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.