It all begins at home,
with the wooden pram,
the set of coffee cups,
and the two-plaited doll,
the daughter who is destined for marital servitude,
whose dowry may bring some profit to a household,
and who in olden times used to be buried alive 
for she was considered an ill omen
though her father who buried her was himself conceived in a womb.

At school, she is not supposed to compete with boys.
Her feminine nature dictates stupidity that does not appall
for she was born to conform.

Her aspirations become the subject of ridicule
and should she prove her ability to perform,
she becomes a male born in a female form,
an aberration from the norm,
with no femininity at all.