My body is not safe.
It has never been easy, wearing this female skin in a world that constantly reminds you of its true lack of worth, of its lack of agency, of its lack of power. It has always meant enduring violence, shaming, hatred, and assault. This body is not its own even though only I occupy it, even though I should have the authority to say, “This is mine and you cannot have it.” I occupy this skin and this space, and today of all days, that seems too much of a burden to carry, too much of a game of endurance I can no longer tolerate.
America has never been a land of the free. It has been a land of free white men, whose privileges reflect the racist, sexist, ableist, xenophobic, homophobic, and discriminatory policies this country has continually put in place to afford white men the political power they so crave to lord over the rest of the population. These men who believed for the first half of our nation’s history that women didn’t deserve to vote. These men who were granted so much bodily autonomy yet refused to allow women the same luxury. These men who call assault minor, who tell women they are the reason their bodies have been so disregarded. These men who have historically denied me access to my own body and all it means. These are the men that have triumphed in this moment and who are the reason why this body is not safe, why I watched the results of a presidential election with physical tremors and streams of tears.
The personal is the political. My body is political in all that it is, in all the space that it takes up.
My sister and I are women whose very experiences and identities are threatened by the existence of these men, of this administration, of the millions of people who deemed our safety less important than their fear of making room for us, of violence and terror this man represents. The man elected last night is the man we have always known to be afraid of, a conglomeration of all the men I have feared, of all the men that have verbally and physically threatened my right to this body, my right to occupy this space. My body is my own, but not really. It is in the hands of this man and his views on women, sexual assault, violence, reproductive rights, and so much more. It in the hands of a man accused of sexual assault, who views women as merely objects for him to take and use as he pleases and then discard, who views my body as something which is meant for him.
In the nineteen years I have claimed space within this country, I have been assaulted by men like the man elected too many times to count. I have been yelled at, followed, threatened, offered money, told to smile, told to take up less room, told that this body is not for me and has never been, told to make my body do things it did not want to. I became the master at making myself invisible, at shrinking, at allowing men to take my space for themselves, too. I have let myself think myself at fault for it all, as if my body is somehow something for others to dictate. I have tried to make my body not exist, make it powerful again, make it something other than this that it is. The female body, and my body, is entitled to occupy space in the way it chooses, in the way it needs. My body does not belong to those men who claim it, who aim to plant their own legislative flag on the space it takes up, who aim to take away all that I have worked so hard to keep in existence. It is not a perfect body; it is a body that has panic attacks when it comes close into contact with men who remind me of those that have violated this space. It is a body that has been told it takes up too much space. It is a body that cannot always protect itself.
This election is personal, is aimed at controlling bodies and those who occupy them. To be female and to claim this space is to be revolutionary, is to say “You cannot have this.” I yearn for the day that I do not need to justify this body to the men around it, for the day when its existence is enough to allow for basic human rights. This body is mine and mine alone. For the years I believed the opposite, I can only apologize in hopes that my body may begin to forgive me. For those who have chosen a man who would only say that my body is up for the taking, I will no longer apologize. I take up this space and this body and I have never been more afraid than I am at this moment. I see this man and in his face, see the men who have disregarded this body.
This is my body, but as of this morning, has never felt more inadequate in its entirety. This is my body and I have to work to try and reclaim all that means. May you begin to reclaim yours.