A World Without

Tonight I’ll go to sleep,

Hoping to wake up to a whole new world,
A world without gender biases ,
The same ones that oppress us as a nation.
The same ones that grasp progress by its collar and stifles it.

Statements like “face it like a man” become routine,

Has a man not feelings?
I think “face it like a robot” should be used instead.
Society’s norms have forced men to pen up their emotions,
And emotions like most other things pent up takes a turn for the
worst.
Violence, drug abuse and dysfunctional minds are often the
result.

Tonight I’ll go to sleep,

Hoping to wake up to a whole new world,
A world where a person’s salary in the workplace is measured by
their labour and not their gender.
A world where Sheila can work for the same salary as John.

Tonight I’ll go to sleep

Hoping desperately to wake up to a whole new world,
A world without the traditional stereotype type that women are
meant to be housewives.
A world where women are allowed to pursue jobs and not only
tend to houses and children.
A world where women are valued as much more than baby
making machines.
Think about it carefully,
Don’t you think the world would be better?
If society weren’t under the impression that boys aren’t suited to
excel in school.
A world empty of statements such as “books are for girls” and
“boys will be boys”
A world where males will be pushed behind their books by
parents equally as hard as females often are.

Tonight I’ll go to sleep,

And dream my life away ,
About a world where females are allowed to play a part in
decision making.
A world where where their opinions aren’t pushed to the side
like unwanted vegetables on a plate.

Today before I go to sleep,

I’ll get on my knees and pray,
Pray that god wakes me up to a whole new world,
A world where men don’t commit violent act towards their
wives.
A world where wives are treated as soul mates and not as
impudent offsprings.

Tonight I’ll go to sleep,

Hoping to wake up to a whole new world,
A world where men can be free to report violent acts done
against them by females.
A world where a man wouldn’t be laughed at and mocked in
police stations for doing so.
A world where a man can have the freedom to cry on someone’s
shoulder, without being called weak.
Before I went to sleep last night,
I let my imagination run wild,
Run wildly along the thought,
Of a concept where boys are as protected as girls often are.
Where girls will be able to go out with friends as often as boys
would.

Tonight before I go to sleep,

I’ll have a talk with my mom,
Emphasizing the need for females to have access to the same
activities as males.
Conversing of a world where all sports have a male and female
division and not some.

Tonight before I go to sleep,

I’ll do my homework,
I’ll base my essay on a world where in every country a woman
had to right to choose the man that she wanted,
A world where teenage girls weren’t illegally forced to marry
men because of marriages that their parents arranged or were
paid for.

Tonight before I go to sleep,

I’ll give my friend a call,
A call envisioning a whole new world,
A world where more women ran as presidential candidates and
succeeded.
A world where society wasn’t under the impression that men are
better leaders than women.
Tonight before I go to sleep,
I’ll sit and have a thought,
A thought about why gender equality isn’t fully achieved.
Is it because of society’s norms and stereotypes?
Or is it because of a lack of collective effort?
Questions, questions, questions!
All to which I have no answer!

Apart from playing my part in society,

There isn’t much that I myself can do,
Except go to sleep and hope to wake up to a world where none
of these barriers exist.
And if I never wake up in such a world at least I hope that my
child will.
 Preface

The poem “A world without” is about an individual who observes

the continuous struggle for gender equality in the world mainly
the Caribbean. Throughout this poem the barriers to achieving
this goal were identified and possible solutions were granted.

The researcher wrote this poem with the objective of bringing

forth a few critical points concerning the topic of gender
equality. The most important goal was to grant to the intended
audience a clue as to what gender equality is and how important
it is in society. The second objective of the poem is to emphasize
how the lack of gender equality affects the world that we live in.

The target audience of this poetic piece is mainly intended to be

high school students as they need to be informed of this existing
problem in today’s society and equipped with solutions to this
problem.

The researcher used day to day experiences to give the targeted

audience a visual understanding of the situation. The researcher
also incorporated graphical scenarios familiar to teens since the
target audience consists mainly of high school students, this
method was used in order to capture the and keep the
audience’s interest throughout the piece.

The researcher hopes that the piece will be entertaining yet

informative.