The Girl With No Reflection by Keshe Chow

Men confine women to their homes and deny them access to the outside world. She then discusses the oppression that occurs in the east, which is equally, if not more, repulsive. Naheed focuses on this point, attempting to demonstrate that compelling a woman to believe her self-worth is inextricably related to her body is a powerful type of oppression that we as a culture are failing to confront. Almost every girl in the western world, if not the entire world, is obsessed with improving her external appearance in order to flaunt it when she goes out. In today’s society, especially for women, showing one’s body has become a means of eliciting amazement and acclaim from others around us. This is a term that refers to a model or actress who agrees to be shot in expensive apparel in order to promote a commercial product. She is adamantly opposed to being identified as the woman who sells socks and shoes. Naheed adopts the voice of a female character, which can easily be interpreted as her own, particularly given her origins in the eastern hemisphere.

The opening stanza discusses women’s persecution in both western and eastern cultures. I am not that Woman is an inspirational poetry that reminds the world that women deserve respect, and even more crucially, that women should value and proudly respect themselves. Connecting a woman’s worth and self-esteem to her body is in and of itself an act of oppression. Women’s beauty is frequently exploited in ads in order to promote a range of items, and Naheed makes an excellent point that this is also a form of oppression.

While this overt persecution may not exist in the west, Naheed asserts that women are victimised covertly in western cultures through their worth being related to their bodies. While this cannot be extended to all countries and cities, many eastern civilizations retain this mentality to this day. Women are clearly repressed throughout a major portion of the east, where they are imprisoned behind closed doors and told they can never achieve anything in life. Naheed makes the case that women deserve respect and are not commodities through a somewhat feminist worldview. I Am Not That Woman compares both overt and covert forms of female oppression in contemporary culture.

By examining the treatment of women in a variety of eastern cultures, Naheed boldly concludes that women are oppressed and deserve respect. I Am Not That Woman is a poem advocating for women’s liberation. I am not that Woman By Kishwar Naheed Summary

The Girl With No Reflection by Keshe Chow