Dear sister, you can not go to school!
Knowledge is of no use to you!

After all you’ll have such a limited life
You’ll be married off young to someone you didn’t choose
And your life will consist of bearing children
And preparing food

You won’t have a public life in any case
You can talk to men who are relatives, not the rest

You see, you have no reason to read and write
We’ll take care of everything in the best way

Also, since the world is such a dangerous place
You can’t appear in public while showing your face
Your eyes you can leave uncovered since you need to see
But for the rest, please cover up properly!

If you get hot
Think of it as a free spa
If you feel restricted…
Well, you’re used to that by now

We honor you and value you
But for certain things
You need not worry about complicated things
Leave those to us and the other men
We’ve figured out a great system!

And if you feel all these things are
Unbalanced and unjust
It’s probably because you went to school, and thus
You see that we’re doing you a favour by destroying schools
Education will only make you distraught

And if you wonder how we came up
With this way of doing things
Which has your best interest at heart
Well, that’s another thing you need not think about

Trust us and do as we say and all will be well
If anyone tells you anything different, don’t believe them
They are surely just looking out for themselves
We are the ones looking out for you, dear sister

December 22nd, 2015
Inspired by Malala’s story