Why I need feminism

                              

I was doing an intake interview with a new client at work. She was seeking help at our agency because one of her male co-workers sexually molested her when she fell asleep (most likely having drugged her). He then proceeded to harass her incessantly through calls and texts the next day.

I watched the tears fall from her eyes as she recounted her story… and I found myself taking on her suffering, and feeling my own heart clutch with anger and pain. People say that oppression doesn’t exist. That advocating for women’s rights is a bunch of bull because the system is already “equal” and well, women are just being a bunch of “whiny bitches” for making mountains out of mole holes.

Well, for those people, this is your rude awakening. Rape happens. Sexual assault and harassment exists. I hear stories like these as a therapist more frequently than I would wish, and see the extensive damage it causes to one’s life and psyche. As women, we navigate these risks every day, because some men cannot conceive of the fact that a woman’s body is completely hers and what she chooses to do with it is HER right, and NO ONE else’s. Instead, certain men think that they have a right to our bodies, and that our bodies are their fucking privilege.

That’s why I “need feminism.” That’s why I speak out. Because if we stay silent, if we just sit and take it like the “good and complacent women we should be,” then we will lose our rights, our identities, our voices, and our dignity. If we let the oppressive take, we will have nothing left.

Having to look into this client’s eyes, and the eyes of my other clients who have been victims of harassment and assault, I see clearly how inequality and oppression are very real.

I don’t care what anyone says, no person should be subjected to this kind of agony, pain and trauma, and denying the existence of this pain is equivalent to gouging your eyes out and willing yourself blind. Just because you don’t want to see it, does not mean it doesn’t exist.