I often wonder how many invisible pins are dropped on the map of my life.
Tiny red markers that appear whenever I step outside the house.
Some blink quietly on someone else’s screen, silently telling them where I am.
Technology calls it convenience.
Safety, they say.
But I call it a leash.
I am a woman built for autonomy. My nature leans towards the ‘pioneer’ – the one who maps her own route and trusts her own shadow. But the sunlight of Lucknow doesn’t seem to offer enough protection in the traditional script of ‘daughterhood.’.
The distance from the University of Lucknow to my front door is barely 15 minutes. In the geography of a city, it is a heartbeat.
In the life of a twenty-year-old woman, it should be a stroll of absolute insignificance. Yet, in the eyes of those who love me, those two thousand meters are a gauntlet.
Even as I navigate complex legal frameworks and professional degrees at my desk, my physical self is treated as a perpetual amateur. It is a strange, quiet gaslighting: to be told – you are mature enough to build a future, but not mature enough to cross a street at noon without a digital tether. Funny.
For me, the conversation almost always ends with the same two words: “Send location.”
I am not a project to be managed or a package to be tracked in real-time; I am a person meant to pave my own path.
I understand where the surveillance comes from. Beneath the pings and refreshes lies genuine worry. Yet when the journey is within the city I’ve lived in all my life, that care begins to feel like a gilded cage.
When the requirement to be tracked becomes a constant, the message I receive isn’t “we love you” – it feels more like a quiet whisper saying, “You’re not capable alone.”
This is why so many girls feel a quiet urge to leave their hometowns. It isn’t out of the a lack of love for the streets they grew up on, but because they feel perpetually restricted.
Too much care, however well-intentioned, can dim the spirit of a woman who is perfectly mature and intelligent.
Let her do her own things; let her make her own mistakes and learn from them. After all, if you truly believe your upbringing was strong, why assume she will choose only what is wrong the moment she is out of sight?
To doubt her independence is, in a way, to doubt your own teachings.
If the world is truly so terrifying, perhaps she should have been sent to boxing classes instead of being steered toward painting lessons.
We are told we are too fragile for the rougher parts of life, and then we are restricted by the very ‘weakness’ that society spent years instilling in us.
The problem isn’t the woman; it’s a perspective built on the groundless assumption that she can never be enough on her own.
WHY CAN’T SHE?
Every day, women from this very campus step into courtrooms as lawyers, boardrooms as executives, and classrooms as teachers shaping the next generation. If they can navigate the complexities of the world outside, surely they can navigate the streets between their university and their home.
If they had let society paint their boundaries or track their every step, would they still be where they are now?
The world is never consistent when it comes to us;
it remains a house divided.
They tell you while you’re young, “Girls, go out and have your fun.”
Then they hunt and slay the ones who actually do it
– Criticize the way you fly, when you’re soarin’ through the sky
Shoot you down and then they sigh and say,
“She looks like she’s been through it.”
It is a cycle of being told to reach for the stars, only to be grounded the moment you actually try to leave the nest.
It is a staggering irony: society grants more ‘protective’ validity to a child who still sucks his thumb than to a woman navigating her own future.
We prioritize the mere presence of a male shadow over the sharpened intellect and survival instincts of a grown adult.
It is a performance of safety that values gender over competence, treating a mature woman as a liability and a child as her shield.
To the women walking the halls of LU – if you are trusted to master the complexities of your degree, you are more than capable of mastering the streets of your own city.
We are students of the world, not subjects of a tracker.
Instead of demanding my location, simply ask if I’ve reached safely or tell me to drive with care. Replace the tracker with a ‘we trust you’ and a ‘call us if you need us.’
My mind doesn’t find that triggering or demanding; it finds it warm.
It transforms a cold digital leash into a shield of genuine concern, proving that you believe in my ability to navigate the world while still being there if the world gets too loud.
Let love be a source of strength that empowers, rather than a shadow that restricts.
True protection isn’t found in monitoring a location; it is found in understanding a woman’s perspective and respecting her ability to navigate her own life.