The sixteen-day interaction program against gender-based violence was underway. During the introduction program, we had to open up and tell about ourselves. Men, women, sexual minorities, and people with disabilities all introduced themselves.

When a woman introduces herself by setting roles, many people say things like, 'I am a mother', 'I am someone's wife', 'I am someone's daughter-in-law', 'and finally, I am an employee working in an office'. Her introduction should have been 'I am a self-reliant and confident person', but it is all about emotions. 

Emotions bind us tightly. Of course, if we let emotions go and only talk about ourselves, there is a kind of fear that we will somehow interfere with humanity. Emotions must also be strengthened to maintain love, affection, and closeness between people.

For only a few years of life, a person can struggle saying, 'I can do something alone, even without anyone's support and cooperation.' However, like being chained, people are chained to each other. Some of us, when introducing ourselves, also resort to the clothes we wear, jewelry, and bangles. This can also be assessed from the fact that a famous singer like

posted such an emotional status when she had to break up with her boyfriend and later husband due to disagreements. She was a strong and capable young woman, and she was making herself a victim in her emotions by not considering the issue of separation due to disagreements as normal.

There is no need to keep revealing your identity to everyone everywhere. Where literate people gather together, introduce themselves, and aspire to make themselves known in society more – in such a situation, such an introduction is necessary. However, there are many men/women in our society who are struggling with life without introducing themselves to two or four people. Our mothers, sisters, and brothers have created their own style of struggle to survive.

A woman who does not think only for herself but realizes her responsibility towards her family, and devotes all her time to her family without letting any harm come to her in taking care of her children, or an elderly woman who, despite suffering from various diseases, musters up courage and takes care of her husband's health - she continues to show her 'strong person' to her family and neighbors.

Whether she is a woman or a man or a gender and sexual minority - first of all, they are human beings and have an identity as independent individuals. They walk as 'themselves' by setting their own standards of morality, following the roles given by religion and culture and the instructions of their elders. Indeed, our identity is bound by many things - the walls of religion, culture and caste. 

Our values, beliefs, interests, strengths, weaknesses, past experiences and emotions guide our personal lives. We ourselves may not even be aware of identifying our values ​​and which principles, honesty and justice guide us. What do we really want to do? How many have the identity and the freedom to do that work and the environment? There is no environment to think about that either. 

Do we think about identifying and reviewing our strengths and weaknesses and improving them? Did our pasts determine our present day or not? Those who can write can write thoughts and feelings and self-reflect. However, many women who live with thoughts, feelings and self-esteem cannot weave letters.

What do we want to be and what kind of life do we want to live? How many of us are visualizing? The system of 'whatever happens, whatever happens', patriarchy and social values ​​towards women also make our self-identity anonymous. 

A woman wants to share her pain with someone somewhere. Usually, women vent their feelings somewhere and 'release stress'. Let me give you a small example - I was traveling in a public bus. A cheerful and cheerful woman boarded the bus. The bus was empty. She looked around.

and started talking to me. Where are you going? Is this your home? What do you do? Is it a government job or a daily wage worker? She kept asking me one question after another. I was avoiding her by answering only one or two. She was also trying to tell me about herself. She was saying that even though her parents were 45 minutes away, she had not been able to visit her parents for the past 3 months. At the same time, another woman boarded the bus from another spot. That woman was also talkative.

She was talking about going to church. After 3 months, the woman who was going to her parents and the woman who was going to church started talking again. The woman who had boarded the bus earlier told me what I had left to say to the other woman who was going to church. She had a painful story to tell. She had been taking care of her paralyzed husband for 13 years.

She was saying – 20 years ago, her husband had broken his spine after falling from a tree and after 7 years, he became paralyzed. She was sharing these things with the church-going woman.

Again, the woman was saying, ‘No, go to the Lord. He will fix whatever problem you have.’ And, the woman who was taking care of her husband was saying that he could not be cured because she had already tried all the possible remedies. However, that faithful woman kept insisting on what was imaginary and impossible and saying that it would be okay. The other people who were listening to the conversation were also listening silently, in which I was also silent, feeling that the woman was sending the wrong message. 

We women do not need a secret place to vent our pain. And, a public place is enough for women to talk about superstitions. A woman wanted to gain some peace and belonging by narrating about her husband's paralyzed condition at home, but the person she was telling the truth was giving her the wrong message. The society we live in is like this, we live our own way of life. Somewhere or the other, we try to express our pain, sorrow, happiness, and struggle history to someone by introducing ourselves. But, does the person listening to that introduction feel the essence or not? That is worth considering. 

Should only women understand women's pain or should men also understand it? That is an important question. And men should also share their feelings with women without hesitation. Often, men are not found to pay much attention to 'women's things' in the exchange of feelings. However, even though our thinking and understanding styles are different, when it comes to emotional and human issues, we should show humane behavior - if someone is narrating their feelings, they should also get some emotional support. However, as mentioned above, there should be no emotional support like ‘go to the shelter of the Lord and cry out, your husband’s illness will surely be cured’. Now it is time for us women, especially, to shed the old and superstitious mindset in our ‘self-introduction’ and introduce ourselves to society in a progressive manner.