One neighbor once questioned me getting a college education and laughed while telling me “Why are you still studying? You’ll just get married by the way”. Regardless he only intended to make me laugh or he really meant what he said, I don’t think that it is okay to make fun and easily come up with a stereotype of what woman can only do.

I only smiled to him as my response. But deep inside my mind I wanna slash him with my words and let him know that I can’t just be someone based on the standards they just give. I wanted him to understand that women are not just a subject of marriage and not just destined to become a mother of her children. Aside from the beautiful profession of being a wife and a mom, one woman can be a leader of a community, a boss of her own company or a woman on the road continuously finding herself and it doesn’t makes her less of a woman.

Any woman or man can get a college diploma as many as she or he wants. Any woman or man can travel around the globe as far as she or he wants. A woman or a man can run a community as modest as she or he wants. For short, ANYONE regardless of the gender can do anything her or his heart desires as long as she or he wants it. The problem here is not how strong a woman’s capabilities are but how the society discern and run down those capabilities.

5 years after I received those words, I am still here. Not MARRIED, not a MOM, still on the way of becoming someone I wanted to be and I think this really not makes me less of a person.

Girl! Don’t follow the crowd, we should follow our heart.