"My talent has got nothing to do with gender". This is Sofia Ashraf's message to men

The focus should be on work, not on someone's gender.

Dipannita Saha Dipannita Saha
मार्च 23, 2017
She's just a rapper, not a rapper chick. Photo: Youtube

Sofia Ashraf gained popularity after her rap Kodaikanal Won't went viral, in which she dissed Unilever for polluting Kodaikanal. Since then, the young rapper has made a name of her own.

However, she says that people often focus only the fact that she's a woman instead of the work she does. In a video for Blush Channel's #KaamSeMatlabRakh campaign, she talked about how she's tired of being called 'rapper chick'.

"I can't sing but I wanted to be on stage so I said, hey I'll rap! I had gotten on stage in 2008 and I was rapping about my identity of being a hijabi and things like that. I was immediately called the burkha rapper. I felt a little uncomfortable, because I saw people were focusing on my attire more than what I was saying(sic)," she said in the video.

She goes on to say that the she feels weird about being called the female rapper. "Just this whole idea of a female rapper and giving my gender and undue importance instead of my craft, feels weird. And I feel a little guilty," Ashraf said.

She also recalled an instance where she was talking to a reporter once, who suggested she start an all-girls band, to which she exclaimed that she would just form a band. "If a girl is a good drummer, I'll use her. If a guy is a good drummer, I'll use him. If it doesn't stand for who I am as a person, I do say no," she explained.

She concludes the video by saying that people need to grow beyond their gender. "Let your art be bigger than your gender," she added.

What everyone needs to understand is that women work as hard as men and by focusing on their gender, we somehow devalue the efforts they put in. We unknowingly make it seem that a woman's achievement is big simply due to her gender.

Also read: You just can't afford to miss this video questioning gender stereotypes

So guys, a word of the wise, the next time you add the prefix 'female' or 'woman' in front someone's designation, STOP. A person is much more than their gender, remember that.

You can watch the full video here.


 

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