Letters to Melinda

they’re designed with such an appreciation of womanhood, of how beauty and fury and strength and wickedness can be inside one body… we have two Xs, and so we’re chimeras, fickle and changing and incredible. Anyone who doesn’t consider themselves a feminist is an idiot, because the strongest, most core fact of womanhood is that we will fight for what we love. We will fight. And if anyone is hurting my sisters, is holding them back, is forcing them to break their own hearts by bearing a child they can’t love or protect… I will not just sit back and allow an injustice like that. I can’t. Feminism is about that feeling you get, as a man or a woman, when someone’s made your little sister cry. When a girl you love has been raped or beaten. Anyone who can’t understand the need for contraception or abortion has lost something crucial in their souls which would allow them to empathise; how could you bear to give birth to a child, when you can’t offer them anything? Someday, it’ll be the right time, but no one is allowed to choose when that should be but you.

God, I think I’m crying. I’ve seen women in Africa who can’t look after their babies. That sort of pain is something these ignorant, misogynistic men who are shouting hurtful bullshit in the name of politics can’t understand; to be a nuturing soul, to be biologically programmed to be loving, and to be betrayed. Betrayed by the men whose strength should be protecting you, not hurting, whose politics should be defending your right to independence and freedom and love, not killing off any dreams you might have had for yourself. They want us barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, because that’s easier to comprehend. Easier than to imagine a world where femininity is incorporated into our politics and society.

Could you imagine? A world where power-plays aren’t important. Where all that matters is protecting the weak and defending, looking out for the best interests of your country. Of your people, seeing them as an extension of your own family. A world built on empathy.