What happened to Rupi Kaur as a child? How did Rupi Kaur’s abuse shape her poetry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Rupi Kaur, abuse and oppression were a part of her childhood. She was raped by her uncle and silenced by the men around her. These themes are present in her poems in milk and honey<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more about Rupi Kaur, abuse, and oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n As a child, Kaur saw that women were expected to be silent and subservient. For Rupi Kaur, abuse from men was also a part of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up, Kaur and her mother were told to be silent.<\/strong> Any time Kaur would try to speak up, her father and other men in her life would shut her down. Her father was afraid of her voice, so she grew to be afraid of it too. This may have been because her father taught her that women having an opinion made them less desirable to the rest of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because she was told to stay silent, Kaur began to view herself as unimportant. <\/strong>She would look at herself in the mirror and tell herself that she was nothing. When she tried to convince herself that she was allowed to exist and have an opinion, her insecurities would silence her. She submitted to the demands of the men in her life and remained silent and unseen throughout her childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s through this demand for submission that Kaur asserts that women have been taught that sex is similar to a pit stop for men. <\/strong>They may come and go as they please, but they never have to stay for long. In her own experiences, she couldn\u2019t draw the connection between sex and love for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first boy Kaur kissed held her down and forced himself on her. She was five years old at the time. After this, Kaur believed that her body wasn\u2019t her own. Instead, her body was meant to be given to those who wanted it. <\/strong>She explains that the boy was a product of the household he was living in. His father\u2019s sexual demands towards his mother taught him that sex was a man\u2019s right and a woman\u2019s obligation. Kaur relates to the boy\u2019s mother through the emptiness Kaur felt after the forced encounter. For Rupi Kaur, abuse like this was what shaped her perception of a woman’s role in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a child, Kaur was raped by her uncle. <\/strong>She recalls her assault in graphic detail. In one therapy session, her therapist asked her to point to the area her uncle touched her. She noticed that the doll was about the same size as the girls her uncle liked to abuse. After she explained her uncle\u2019s actions, her therapist asked how she was feeling. She said that she felt numb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Rupi Kaur, abuse from her uncle had long-lasting effects For a while, her trauma led her to feel unsafe in sexual or physical situations, even when they were safe and consensual.<\/strong> She would sometimes flinch when someone touched her because she was afraid it was her abuser. Though it took time, she did overcome her trauma. It significantly impacted her life, but she didn\u2019t let it destroy her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What happened to Rupi Kaur as a child? How did Rupi Kaur’s abuse shape her poetry? For Rupi Kaur, abuse and oppression were a part of her childhood. She was raped by her uncle and silenced by the men around her. These themes are present in her poems in milk and honey. Read more about Rupi Kaur, abuse, and oppression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,33,12],"tags":[188],"class_list":["post-23537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethics","category-people","category-relationships","tag-milk-and-honey","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nRupi Kaur: Abuse and Oppression<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Gender Oppression<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Rupi Kaur’s Abuse and Sexual Assault<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n