About Riya Mandala, Head of Public Relations
Hi I’m Riya Mandala
Growing up and even now, I wasn’t exactly like the “others”. Though I found romance movies and fashion shows fascinating, it wasn't what my heart longed for.
Yes, I am “that girl”, the one who finds comfort in action-packed movies and is comfortable with a messy bun and in sweats. Yes, I am “that girl”, the girl who’s loud and cracks jokes every two seconds.
But why “that girl”?
Our society is broken as a whole: I couldn’t even grow up without being ridiculed for the way I walked, talked, ate, and even breathed.
Why was it bad that I was “that girl”?
If anything, “that girl” was all I wanted to be. Us girls are told not to put as much food on our plates as the boys, because we are girls. We are told to walk slowly and lightly because we are girls. We are told we must be quiet and sit upright because we are girls.
But, it is because we are girls that we are strong.
Ambitious.
Independent.
Fearless.
My time and
my experiences...
That time…
Like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t act like or have many of the interests that girls are supposed to have. I still admit that putting makeup on and getting dressed up used to be fun, until I realized that that was and is all people see in us girls.
However, once when I threw on a pair of basketball shorts and didn’t do my hair, I was called a tomboy. You can see how that offended me. Just because I was a girl and had shown different behavior and interests, I was labeled with a name that had to have the word “boy” in it.
Most girls have hit rock bottom and thought about changing themselves just to appease others. They wanted to create an image that was eye-catching (by society’s standards), but not them. Some girls have to grow up in environments where changing for a man was what they were made to think was their life’s purpose. But you’ll never hear it in vise versa.
We are constantly being put below the patriarchy, and it’s sickening. And when we say change needs to be made, we are told by others that “we are tyrants”.
What we really need is the constant stereotyping to stop; the constant ridicules, the constant threats, the constant abuse of power, and the constant stupidity of thinking one is over the other; when truly all we want is to be equal.