Him: Who do you think you are? Me: a Woman!

I have just joined World Pulse today.. I have decided to start by sharing with you this story. It was few years back.. I hope it will not be too long .. and please forgive me any language mistakes.

It was just another day of the week, however it didn't start normally.. my sister who is a pharmacist is usually the first of us to go to work in the morning..I remember waking up to my other sister's voice telling her : just try to breathe .. I woke up and I saw my sister was suffering and can not breath normally, within minutes everyone in the house was awake , my dad, my sisters and my brother ... I was still in medical school at that time, but believe me when it is something concerning your relatives, you tend to just freeze!! and all the information that you have been studying disappear! .. anyways I was just telling them we need to rush her to the hospital because this is clearly an emergency .. so my brother went outside and stopped a cab, and then my father, me , my brother and my other sister took her to the hospital.. the nearest one to us was the \"Military Hospital\" .. We live in Khartoum by the way the capital city of Sudan. we arrived there ... my sister was clearly in distress ... the guards stopped us ... at the beginning they were like we can not admit her as the hospital nowadays only accept \"military people\" .. we were like but it is an emergency ... after my dad talked with them they are like OK .. go inside and try to find the doctor ... so, they let my father, my 2 sister and my brother in ,, when I wanted to enter as I was the last one, the guard stopped me and he said you can not enter .. I was like I am a medical student (as a medical student we usually get the the right to enter any hospital) .. but he said no. you can't. and he looked at me in a way that I didn't like. I told him its OK .. I will just wait outside then. I stood next to the big glass wall looking inside trying to find my family and see if my sister is OK .. I was very much focused on that so I wasn't even aware of whats happening around me ... you ... ya bit (hey girl in Arabic) .. I am talking to you ... - a man voice- .. I turned my head and it was the guard, I was like : excuse me? .. he said yea I am talking to you .. move, you can not stand here .. me: what???? what do you mean?? I need to be able to see my family.. He said: I said move, you are not allowed to stand here. I was like: I am sorry but you let all my family in, I am alone, and I will not move away from the sight of my family. he then made his voice louder and again asked me to leave my spot but I refused so he called another man and was like : Janabo (a word for a person who is in the military or security service) this girl doesn't want to listen to me .. the other guy approached me and literally was few inches away from my face in an intimidating way he said with a tone: what do you think you are doing?? huh?? you are a civilian and you have been ordered by a military man to leave so you must leave. I was like : NO .. I am NOT leaving .. do you want to arrest me because i am standing here?? arrest me .. The only way you can move me from her is to drag me do you want to do that? do it because I am NOT moving! ..

He looked at me with a surprised eyes and he was like : what??? who Do you think you are??? huh? 2 MEN are talking to you and ordering you to leave and you refuse, who do you think you are?? .. I said: a WOMAN! ... he was like : what?? -- he never expected this answer from me -- I firmly repeated with a louder voice -and at that moment by the way some people had gathered mostly men and were watching but no one said anything- .. I repeated .. I am a WOMAN and I am telling you the MAN that I am not moving!!! ..

At that moment my sister came out and she saw those men ganging on .. she could hear the last part and them still insisting to ask me to leave, so she was angry and she was like tell me your names, you think you can just do whatever you want without any consequences? she said she will raise a claim against them .. then my family came out and they said we have to rush out to another hospital because apparently the doctors were not around!! - this is the ER by the way-!!! as our main focus was to help my sister we left immediately ..

We took my sister to private hospital, she was treated and within hours she was able to get discharged from the hospital .. she had a cute respiratory problem that had to be treated asap.. Thank god we were able to get to the hospital in a good time..

I was so furious that day to be treated like that by those men who decided to exploit their power ..and I am sure the reason they asked me to stay out is because they wanted to \"chat\" with the \"girl\".. and when I didn't pay attention to them and made it clear that i do not want to talk they decided to harras me in this way..

Its common to hear these phrases in Sudan : You are just a woman.. it is because she is a woman .. and one of my favorite -NOT- proverb is : The woman,even if she becomes an ax she will not be able to cut the head! (meaning no matter how strong the woman becomes or successful she will be, she will never be able to do or achieve anything).. among many other things that I will be mentioning in my future posts ..

But I was so proud that day . I was happy that I had the courage to stand up against them and reply and say I am a WOMAN .. and I was able to hold my tears inside. I walked away with my head up not letting them making me any less proud of my gender.

So to all my women out there .. be proud of who you are .. be proud of your womanhood.. be WOMEN! .

Noon a Woman and proud