Disclaimer & Content Warning: This article discusses sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, coercion, victim-blaming, trauma, gender-based violence, religion, culture, and personal experiences of abuse. Some descriptions and language may be distressing or triggering for readers with related experiences. This essay reflects the author’s personal experiences, perspectives, interpretations, and opinions. It is intended as a personal and cultural commentary, not as a representation of the experiences or beliefs of all women, men, survivors, Indians, South Asians, religious communities, or members of any particular faith or culture. References to patriarchy, gender norms, religion, cultural practices, laws, statistics, and social conditions are intended to encourage discussion and examination of broader patterns. They should not be interpreted as claims that every individual within a particular group holds the same beliefs, behaves in the same way, or bears the same responsibility. Where religious traditions are discussed, the author does not intend to denigrate, attack, or speak on behalf of any faith. Religious traditions are diverse, internally complex, and interpreted differently across communities and individuals. References to Sanatana Dharm and its concepts are presented from the author’s cultural and spiritual perspective and are not intended to represent every Hindu or every interpretation of Hindu philosophy, scripture, or practice. Personal accounts are presented as the author remembers and understands them. They are not intended to identify, accuse, or make factual claims about individuals who are not named or to whom the author has not attributed specific conduct. This article is not legal, medical, psychological, or professional advice. Statistics, laws, and other factual information referenced in the article are provided for educational and contextual purposes and may change over time. Most importantly, nothing in this article is intended to place responsibility for sexual violence on survivors. Clothing, alcohol consumption, location, relationship status, previous sexual activity, flirting, silence, freezing, compliance, or any other circumstance does not by itself constitute consent. If this subject matter is personally distressing, please prioritize your wellbeing and step away from the article if necessary.
There is a strange curriculum every girl seems to receive. Nobody formally hands it to you. There is no orientation. No textbook.
No PowerPoint presentation called: HOW TO EXIST SAFELY AS A WOMAN.
And yet, somehow, we learn it.
Don’t walk alone at night. Don’t take shortcuts. Don’t wear that. Don’t drink too much. Don’t get too drunk. Don’t leave your drink unattended. Don’t get into a stranger’s car.
Share your location. Check the back seat. Hold your keys between your fingers. Text me when you get home. Share your Uber ride with me.
Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t be too friendly. Don’t be too sexual. Don’t be too attractive. Don’t be too loud. Don’t go there. Don’t stay there too late. Don’t trust him. Don’t trust them. Don’t trust anybody. Every single one of us has either heard this, or said it.
And if something happens? The questions begin.
What were you wearing? How much did you drink? Why were you there? Why did you go home with him? Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t you say no?
And that last one makes me want to scream. Because we do say no. We have always said no. The problem is that someone decides that our no isn’t important enough to listen to.
The curriculum is always written for women. The first time I really realized this was through school dress codes. And one particular rule always stood out to me. Spaghetti-strap tank tops.
I remember getting in trouble once because I took my cardigan off in class after gym. I was sent to the office because what I was wearing was considered inappropriate.
When I got there, I was let off with a warning.
“You have to be careful with what you are doing and wearing because they can cause distractions.”
I was eleven years old. Eleven. Think about how bizarre that is.
I was a child. And already the lesson was:
Your body is something you are responsible for managing so other people don’t become distracted.
And I was confused because up until that point, I was only told no with clothes that my mom thought was “cheap and ugly looking”. This was a whole new perspective for me.
We spend an enormous amount of time teaching women how to avoid being harmed. To avoid being a “distraction.”
What a load of bullshit. You’re telling me boys can’t be taught simple values, and I have to accommodate for that? Be so fucking for real.
Women are taught situational awareness. Women are taught self-defense. Women are taught safety apps. Women are taught to carry pepper spray. Women are taught to send their location to friends.
Women are taught to fake having a boyfriend. Women are taught to wear wedding rings.
Women are taught to lie about having a husband because sometimes, apparently, another man’s existence is more respected than a woman’s own boundary.
And I find that deeply disturbing.
Why should: “I don’t want you” not be enough?
But: “I have a boyfriend” suddenly is?
Why does my imaginary male representative have more authority over my body than I do? And even then, sometimes the ring doesn’t work. Because the problem was never the absence of a husband.
The problem was the refusal to respect a woman.
A woman’s body is not a public referendum. It does not require a male representative.
NO is NOT a NEGOTIATION. Consent isn’t complicated.
It isn’t a reward. It isn’t something someone earns by being persistent enough. It isn’t revoked because someone is wearing a short skirt. It isn’t invalidated because she flirted with you earlier.
It isn’t erased because she kissed you five minutes ago. It isn’t transferred because she went home with you.
And it doesn’t become less meaningful because she’s your girlfriend. Your wife. Someone you’ve slept with before. Or someone you think “owes” you something.
Consent can be given. Consent can be withdrawn. And a person doesn’t need a courtroom-quality argument to withdraw it.
No means no.
If you don’t understand that, stop being mad at the world and go back to grade school. You don’t need therapy, you need education.
And since women are apparently equipped with all the logic and sense because of our circumstances, let us enlighten you on the different phrases of the word NO:
“I don’t want to.”
“Stop.”
“Move.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“I changed my mind.”
“I do not want to do this anymore.”
“I’m not interested.”
“I’m married.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“I said no.”
And sometimes it’s simply a person physically pulling away. Being visibly uncomfortable. Freezing. Going silent.
Recognize that another human being’s body belongs to them.
And when it happens, we get asked the brain-less questions..
Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t you push him away? Why didn’t you bite him? Why didn’t you call somebody? Why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you say no?
Why didn’t you—
Stop. Seriously.
Have you ever been in that situation? No?
Then maybe don’t sit comfortably on the outside of someone else’s trauma and conduct an interrogation.
Because there is something people seem to forget when they ask these questions. Your brain does not experience extreme danger the same way it experiences an ordinary Tuesday.
When the brain perceives an immediate threat, the amygdala and other parts of the threat-response system become heavily involved in rapidly mobilizing the body for survival.
The nervous system can trigger fight-or-flight responses. But people can also freeze. Become immobile. Dissociate. Comply. Appease. Go quiet. Or behave in other ways that help them survive the immediate threat.
And here’s the part people don’t seem to understand…
You don’t get to choose your survival response like you’re picking an option from a menu.
For one person, survival might look like fighting back. For another, survival might look like running. For another, it might mean freezing completely.
For another, it might mean becoming quiet, complying, pretending everything is okay, and waiting for the danger to end.
And NONE of those responses tells you whether the person wanted what was happening.
Think about being held at gunpoint. Someone points a gun at you and says: “Give me your wallet.”
You have options. You could fight. You could run. You could refuse. You could hand over everything you have.
Most people would understand that handing over your wallet isn’t an enthusiastic endorsement of robbery. It’s a survival decision.
You aren’t thinking: “You know what? I really wanted to lose my money today.”
You’re thinking: “I want to live.”
Maybe you calculate that your wallet isn’t worth your life. Maybe you freeze. Maybe you comply because you think fighting could get you killed. Maybe someone else would fight because they refuse to surrender.
Both people are experiencing a response to danger. And nobody standing outside the situation gets to say: “Well, if you really didn’t want your wallet stolen, why didn’t you fight?”
Because that’s fucking ridiculous.
So why do we suddenly become philosophers of human behavior when the thing being taken is someone’s bodily autonomy?
Survival doesn’t always look heroic. Most of the time it never does. We have this bizarre cultural expectation that a victim should behave like the protagonist in an action movie.
She should scream. She should kick. She should scratch. She should bite. She should escape. She should fight until she physically cannot fight anymore.
And if she doesn’t? People start asking whether she really resisted. But the nervous system doesn’t care about your expectations of what a “strong” person should look like.
It cares about survival. Sometimes survival means fight. Sometimes it means flight. Sometimes it means freeze. Sometimes it means fawn or appease. Sometimes it means becoming completely still and waiting for the threat to end.
Sometimes the safest thing a person believes they can do in that moment is: “Don’t make this worse.” And I need people to understand something incredibly important.
A survival response is not consent. Compliance is not consent. Freezing is not consent. Being unable to physically fight is not consent. Trying to minimize the violence is not consent.
Doing whatever you think will get you through the next five minutes alive is not consent.
“But why didn’t she leave?”
Maybe because her brain was trying to keep her alive. Maybe she was terrified. Maybe she froze. Maybe she thought resistance would escalate the danger. Maybe she was physically restrained. Maybe she was dissociating.
Maybe she didn’t know what would happen if she fought back. Maybe she tried before. Maybe she had already learned, through experience or observation, that fighting can make violence worse.
You weren’t there. You don’t know.
And that’s precisely why the first response shouldn’t be: “Why didn’t you…?”
The first response should be: “Are you safe now?”
Or: “What do you need?”
Or: “I believe you.”
Or: “How can I help?”
There will be plenty of time for facts. There will be plenty of time for investigation. There will be plenty of time for evidence.
But a traumatized person does not owe you a perfectly executed survival strategy before you decide they deserve compassion.
And this is why I have very little patience for the endless who, what, where, when, why, and how questions when they’re being asked as an accusation rather than an attempt to understand.
There is a difference between investigating what happened and interrogating the person it happened to.
“What happened?” can be care.
“Why didn’t you fight?” can be blame.
“Are you safe?” can be compassion.
“Why were you there?” can be judgment.
Learn the difference.
Because if you’ve never been in that situation, you don’t know what your nervous system would do either.
You can imagine what you think you would do.
“I’d fight.”
“I’d scream.”
“I’d kill him.”
“I’d run.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
You don’t know until your brain believes your life is actually in danger. And by then, you’re not taking some calm personality test. You’re trying to survive.
So before asking a survivor why they didn’t behave differently, stop and ask yourself what you would want someone to say to you if the roles were reversed. Because the goal isn’t to find the perfect victim. There is no perfect survival response.
There is only a human being trying to make it out alive, and a jury of people ready to question the reality.
The scale of this is not imaginary. This isn’t just something women are exaggerating on the internet.
The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 1 in 3 women worldwide, about 840 million women and girls, have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate-partner violence or non-partner sexual violence during their lifetime.
WHO identifies gender inequality and harmful gender norms among important drivers of violence against women.
That number is so enormous that it almost stops sounding like individual stories.
But that’s exactly what it is. 840 million individual stories. Different countries. Different religions. Different races. Different socioeconomic backgrounds. Different ages. Different personalities. Different clothes. Different lives.
And somehow the common denominator keeps being the same thing. Someone else’s decision to violate another person’s autonomy.
So when women talk about safety, we’re not inventing a hypothetical problem.
We’re talking about something that happens at a scale large enough to constitute a global human-rights crisis.
AND YES, MEN EXPERIENCE THIS TOO.
This is important. Because I am not interested in turning this into women versus men.
Men have been sexually assaulted. Men have been be raped. Men can be victims of coercion. Men can be afraid to report what happened to them because of shame, masculinity, disbelief, or humiliation.
And rigid gender expectations hurt men, too.
The idea that a man must always want sex. That a man can’t be vulnerable. That a man must fight. That a man can’t say no. That a man should “take it as a compliment.” That a man must be dominant. This a topic that needs to be discussed because it is wrong.
We have movies that depict assault with a woman as a painful experience, yet assault against men is sometimes played for laughs.
That is disgusting on both ends. Those ideas are destructive.
So let me make my position extremely clear. The battle is not between men and women. Men are human. Women are human.
The battle is between patriarchy and human rights.
I don’t use the word patriarchy to mean that every man has an easy life. I don’t believe every man is powerful. I don’t believe every woman is powerless. And I certainly don’t believe every man is a predator.
That’s not what the word means.
Patriarchy describes systems and social arrangements in which men, as a group, have historically held greater authority and control over areas such as political power, property, family structures, inheritance, sexuality, and economic life.
And systems don’t require every individual person to consciously agree with them. Sometimes they’re maintained simply because people keep saying: “That’s just how things are.”
That’s the part I want to challenge. The person who commits the assault is responsible for the assault. But the culture around that person can either make that behavior harder to excuse, or easier.
It can teach boys that persistence is romantic. It can teach girls that accommodating men is feminine. It can teach women to tolerate discomfort. It can teach witnesses to mind their business. It can teach victims to stay quiet.
And it can teach everyone to accept the system as normal. That’s where the battle is. This is the part I wish we talked about more.
We tell girls: “Don’t get raped.”
But do we tell boys: “Don’t rape someone.”
We tell girls: “Don’t walk home alone.”
But do we tell boys: “If you see a woman being followed, check whether she’s safe.”
We tell girls: “Don’t get too drunk.”
But do we tell boys: “Someone being intoxicated does not make them available to you.”
We teach girls how to identify dangerous men. We should also teach boys how to make sure they are never that man. And we should teach boys what it means to intervene when another man crosses a line.
Not necessarily by starting a physical fight. I don’t want that either. Women shouldn’t have to fight men. Men shouldn’t have to fight men. Society should be better at stopping the behavior before violence becomes the only imagined intervention.
Sometimes intervention is: “Hey. She said no.”
Sometimes it’s: “Leave her alone.”
Sometimes it’s getting security.
Sometimes it’s checking on someone afterward.
Sometimes it’s refusing to laugh at the joke.
Sometimes it’s simply refusing to normalize the behavior.
Silence doesn’t always make someone equally responsible for another person’s actions, but silence can absolutely help create environments where harmful behavior feels normal.
I remember being young and walking around in New York. I was walking with three girls and three guys. Random men started approaching us. Hitting on us. And at one point, one of them ran his hands through my hair.
Nobody did anything. That moment stayed with me. Not because I expected them to start a fight. I didn’t. I don’t want every uncomfortable interaction to become a physical confrontation. It’s unfair to be expected to be ready for battle against bad values every single time.
But I remember thinking: Why didn’t anybody say anything?
And then there’s the bizarre economy we’ve built around women’s fear.
We have created an entire ecosystem of products, services, apps, features, alarms, rides, tracking systems, self-defense classes, locks, cameras, and personal safety devices designed around the reality that women have to think about being harmed.
Let’s take transportation as an example. Companies build safety features specifically because women have legitimate concerns about traveling alone. That’s useful. But there’s something deeply revealing about it.
We have become so accustomed to women needing protection that the existence of the fear itself has become a business model. And I’m not saying safety tools shouldn’t exist. Of course they should. I use safety precautions too.
But precaution is not consent.
We have normalized the precautions so thoroughly that sometimes we forget to question the reason they exist.
So when I’m asked: “Did you book a female driver?”
I’m met with a lot of thought, and left with a lot of sadness that cannot be explained away in simple terms.
Think about what women are asked to monitor.
Our clothing. Our alcohol intake. Our location. Our transportation. Our friendships. Our dating history. Our sexuality. Our body language. Our tone. Our friendliness. Our rejection. Our timing. Our reputation.
We are expected to anticipate someone else’s potential lack of self-control. That is an enormous psychological burden.
And the cruelest part? If something does happen, those same precautions can be turned against us.
“Why didn’t you follow the rules?”
Because apparently women are expected to become experts at preventing other people’s decisions.
Are you fucking kidding me?
In the land that is supposed to be about freedom, we are sitting here talking about Ivy League schools protecting predators so that their reputation does not tank. We have rich families covering for them so that all they have to do is write an essay. Because THAT is torture for the new generation, apparently. How pathetic.
We actively are fighting for our rights, again, because an orange and it’s orange party decided it doesn’t like women. But I’m not surprised. I don’t have a lot of high hopes and values for a country when its people who can justify voting for an aged and molded orange.
But then… there is India.
India. The sacred land. The holy land. A civilization with an extraordinary spiritual vocabulary for Dharm, consciousness, divinity, creation, and the nature of existence.
This is where my anger becomes complicated. Because I come from a culture with an extraordinary spiritual vocabulary for the feminine. And I love that part of it.
I don’t want to reject India. I want India to live up to itself. I want Indians to live up to themselves. Sanātana Dharm contains traditions in which the feminine isn’t merely tolerated. She is divine.
Shakti. Durga. Kali. Lakshmi. Saraswati. Parvati.
The Mother.
The feminine principle can represent power, knowledge, prosperity, creativity, protection, destruction, transformation, and the force that animates existence.
Ardhanārīśvara is an image in which Shiva is represented as half male and half female, expressing the unity of Shiva and Shakti.
Think about how profound that is. The feminine isn’t presented merely as something decorative beside the masculine.
She is Shakti. Power. Energy. Force.
And then we have Ardhanārīśvara: one divine form containing both masculine and feminine.
Not enemies. Not competing for dominance.
One whole.
So I have to ask:
How can a civilization possess a spiritual philosophy in which masculine and feminine are imagined as interconnected, and still struggle so profoundly with the treatment of actual women?
I remember once sitting in a room with five women and one man. The elder in that group got up, grabbed a glass of water, and brought it to the one man because he was thirsty.
But something caught my attention. I noticed how the elder behaved toward the man versus the women. There was something about the way she instantly jumped off her chair, filled a glass of water, covered it with a plate on top, and hurried to the man with it. This was someone who had vast knowledge of “Hinduism”.
And that man? He said, very simply: “Learn something.”
I know it is something small to them. I also know this is just fun and tease. There is nothing but genuine love and kindness for everyone. But does that bother you the way it bothers me? Because it bothered me. A lot.
Not because bringing someone a glass of water is inherently wrong. But because of the expectation underneath it. The automatic assumption. The cultural programming. The idea that the man should be served while the women simply continue.
There is nothing wrong with loving and caring for your significant other. My mom always took care of my dad, not because she had to, but because she loved him. I take care of my partner, not because I have to, but because I love him. These are not values that were brought to from “Hinduism” and that the husband is God. No.
This comes from Sanātana Dharm. Yes, there is a difference. Because our significant others did not expect it, did not ever joke to “learn something”, and they did not believe this is the way things are. They received the love, they cherished it, and they gave it right back times a hundred. Because we are ALL divine. We are ALL beings.
There is another part of this tradition that I want to reclaim. The feminine has long been associated with auspiciousness, beauty, prosperity, and abundance.
Lakshmi isn’t simply a symbol of money. She represents abundance and auspiciousness.
And traditions that ritually honor young girls as manifestations of the Divine Feminine. That symbolism matters.
Because when we talk about honoring women, I don’t mean: “Spend all your money on her.”
I don’t mean: “Spoil her until she never has to do anything.”
I don’t mean: “Put her on a pedestal.” A pedestal can be another kind of cage.
I mean something much simpler.
Cherish her. Feed her. Protect her. Listen to her. Respect her choices. Give her room to become herself.
Give her abundance – not necessarily through possessions, but through the abundance of being loved, supported, respected, and allowed to exist without fear.
Sometimes abundance is simply:
“You are safe here.”
“You are wanted here.”
“Your voice matters here.”
“You don’t have to earn your right to exist.”
That is the kind of abundance I mean.
And this is where history gets complicated.
I don’t want to romanticize prehistoric humanity and claim that women everywhere once lived in some universal paradise before patriarchy appeared. That’s not historically defensible. Human societies have always been diverse.
Women have held power in some societies and periods. Women have been oppressed in others. Some traditions preserved female authority alongside male authority. Others became intensely patriarchal. There wasn’t one single day when someone woke up and invented patriarchy.
But throughout history, many societies developed systems that increasingly regulated women’s sexuality, reproduction, labor, inheritance, property, marriage, mobility, and family roles.
And once those systems become deeply embedded in law, religion, economics, and family structure, they can begin to look like nature.
People stop saying: “This is the system we created.”
And start saying: “This is simply what women are supposed to do.”
That distinction matters. Because something can be traditional without being inevitable. Something can be old without being sacred. And something can be culturally normal without being morally right.
Maybe one of the strangest contradictions in human history is this: People have called women sacred while simultaneously trying to control them.
We call Nature Mother.
Mother Earth. Mother Nature. The source of creation. Nourishment. Life. Death. Regeneration.
And then we tell women:
Don’t be too loud. Don’t be too sexual. Don’t be too ambitious. Don’t go there. Don’t stay out late. Don’t challenge him. Don’t embarrass the family. Don’t make him angry. Don’t make yourself “unmarriageable.” Don’t talk back. Don’t have too many partners. Don’t have too few.
Don’t be too independent. Don’t be too dependent. Don’t age too visibly. Don’t show too much. Don’t hide too much. Be beautiful. But not too beautiful. Be desirable. But don’t invite desire.
Be strong. But don’t intimidate men. Be successful. But don’t make your husband feel small. Be nurturing. Be agreeable.
Be everything. Just don’t be inconvenient.
We worship the feminine. Then we police the woman.
How did we get here?
The first thing I do want to look at is religion. And I want to be especially careful here. I don’t want to cherry-pick religious texts from different faiths simply to prove that religion is sexist.
That would be intellectually lazy.
Religious traditions are enormous, internally diverse bodies of thought. They contain texts that have been interpreted in patriarchal ways. They contain texts that elevate women. Texts that emphasize mutual obligations.
Stories of female authority. Female wisdom. Female devotion. Female divinity. And traditions of reinterpretation.
So rather than weaponizing religion, I would rather ask: What happens when human beings take a spiritual ideal and turn it into a hierarchy?
Sometimes the problem is that people take something sacred and use it to justify control. And that distinction matters too.
If you tell me that a woman is sacred, I want to know: How do you treat her?
Not how beautifully you speak about her. Not how many goddesses you worship. Not how many rituals you perform. How do you treat the actual woman in front of you?
You can worship Durga and still tell your daughter to sit down and be quiet. You can pray to Lakshmi and still treat your wife like property. You can celebrate motherhood while expecting mothers to sacrifice themselves indefinitely.
You can invoke Saraswati while discouraging your daughter from becoming educated. You can admire Kali’s power while telling women that anger makes them unattractive.
You can call Parvati the embodiment of devotion while confusing devotion with submission. And you can celebrate Ardhanārīśvara while believing the man should always have the final word.
That’s the contradiction I care about. I don’t want to weaponize spirituality against people. I want spirituality to hold us accountable to its highest ideals.
If you believe in Shakti, respect women’s power. If you honor Lakshmi, don’t treat daughters like burdens. If you revere Saraswati, educate girls.
If you admire Durga, stop teaching women that strength is unfeminine. If you celebrate the Mother, don’t dehumanize mothers.
And if Shiva and Shakti can exist as one divine whole, maybe we should stop pretending that human beings need a hierarchy between masculine and feminine in order to function.
I want to be so clear with you.
THIS IS NOT A WAR BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN.
I need to say this again. Because I know someone will read this and hear: “She hates men.”
I’ll admit it.
I do say I hate men. There are countless moments when I have felt deeply disgusted and unsafe by men as a group. That’s an emotional response to many lived experience, and to witnessing the behavior of other people.
Because every single woman has a story. Your mom, your sister, your cousin, your daughter, your girlfriend, your wife, your best friend, the ex that broke your heart, the ex whose heart you broke. Every single woman. This is why they would rather pick the bear.
But it is not a scientific conclusion about every individual man. Because I know men who are kind. Men who protect without controlling. Men who listen. Men who respect boundaries. Men who call their friends out. Men who believe women.
Men who don’t need to dominate a room. Men who don’t need to prove their masculinity by humiliating someone else. Men who understand that consent isn’t an obstacle.
Men who understand that strength doesn’t mean intimidation. Men who understand that protecting women doesn’t mean owning them.
Some of the greatest men in my life are the ones I grew up with, and my parents never instilled fear or duty regarding men. I wasn’t taught I had to serve them. I was not taught that I have to wear certain things because of them. I was not taught that there was something wrong with being friends with them. I didn’t start seeing the distinction until I was out around society a lot more.
My feelings don’t come from nowhere.
I am a survivor of sexual assault and rape. I was 15, 16, 23, and 24. These specific ages include the men who have succeeded in taking away my autonomy, not the men that forced themselves upon me in trying to succeed. I was too young to even know what to identify it as. I lost my virginity to it. I was in a relationship with someone who didn’t believe my no. I believed someone to be my mentor.
These aren’t theoretical conversations for me. I know what it means to have your body become a place where someone else believes they have authority. I know what it feels like to know that something wrong was done to you, but the accused ends up being you. I was blamed for it. I was shamed for it.vI was told I shouldn’t be so hurt because it happened to me before.
So, yes, I speak from a lot of experience. It was this very experience that brought me to PCOS/PMOS. Trauma changes your body. I still live with it. Every. Single. Day.
So no, this isn’t a war against men. It is a war against the idea that one human being is entitled to dominate another. And that is a human-rights issue.
Women are tired.
Tired of being told to be careful. Tired of being told to dress differently. Tired of being told to carry something for protection. Tired of being told to send our location. Tired of being told not to drink. Tired of being told to smile. Tired of being told we’re overreacting.
Tired of being told we’re too emotional. Tired of being told we’re too aggressive. Tired of being told we’re too independent. Tired of being told we’re not independent enough. Tired of being told to make ourselves smaller. Tired of being told to make ourselves more desirable.
Tired of having to calculate whether being friendly will be misinterpreted. Tired of having to calculate whether being rude will make someone angry. Tired of wondering whether saying no will trigger retaliation. Tired of being asked what we did before anyone asks what happened to us.
And most of all, tired of being told that the solution is for us to become better at surviving the problem.
And then there is the law. Because culture, values, and spirituality aren’t the only things that matter. Law matters. Institutions matter. Enforcement matters. Access to justice matters.
The way a society defines sexual violence matters. And laws themselves can reveal what a society considers a person’s rights to be.
THIS IS WHY “NOT ALL MEN” ISN’T THE END OF THE CONVERSATION.
It’s not even the conversation at all.
When a woman talks about violence against women, responding with: “Not all men” misses the point.
I know it’s not all men, but it’s always the ones who feel offended by it that feel the need to defend it. Because the ones who are secure? The ones who truly value human life? They are not offended.
Give credit to the intellect. Every woman had to learn to be an adult when she was just a little girl. We are aware. We know. We know not all men are rapists. We know not all men harass women. We know not all men are violent.
But “not all men” doesn’t answer the question.
The question is: What are we doing about the men who are? What are we doing about the culture that teaches people to excuse them? What are we doing when we witness it? What are we teaching the next generation?
That’s the conversation. So stop saying “Not all men” as though you’ve contributed something profound to the conversation.
We do not need more women who know how to survive. We need fewer reasons for women to need survival skills.
I don’t want the ultimate achievement to be: “Congratulations! You have learned how to detect danger in every room.”
And yet… I am almost certain my discernment has been praised the most.
I don’t want anyone’s daughter to need a mental checklist every time she leaves the house. I don’t want her to know how to hold her keys between her fingers. I don’t want her to have to pretend to be married.
I don’t want her to text: “Home safe.” because she knows that someone might hurt her. I want her to text: “I had fun.”
I want her to walk. I want her to laugh. I want her to dance. I want her to travel. I want her to wear whatever she wants. I want her to be alone without being afraid. I want her to reject someone without calculating the consequences.
I want her to know that her no is enough. And I want boys to grow up knowing that this isn’t some extraordinary request. It’s basic human decency.
And it isn’t about teaching women to live their life instead of fearing it. No.
And here is what bothers me most.
Women are constantly asked to build a legal case for their own boundaries.
I said no. I was wearing this. I wasn’t drinking. I was drinking. I had a boyfriend. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I told him three times. I moved away. I froze. I fought. I didn’t fight. I screamed. I couldn’t scream.
Why are we constantly being asked to prove that we deserved autonomy?
Why isn’t the starting point simply: She is a HUMAN BEING. That’s enough.
And this brings me back to where I started.
To Shakti. To Lakshmi. To the feminine. To women. To men. To humanity.
I don’t want women placed on pedestals. Because a pedestal is still a cage. I don’t need to be worshipped. I need to be respected. I don’t need a man to protect my honor. I need to be recognized as someone who owns her own life.
And perhaps that is the lesson we have missed.
The feminine does not need to be worshipped instead of respected. She needs to be respected because she is human. And if your spirituality teaches you to see the feminine as sacred, beautiful. Let that spirituality begin with the woman standing directly in front of you.
Your daughter. Your wife. Your mother. Your sister. Your coworker.
The woman walking alone down the street. The woman who said no. The woman who changed her mind. The woman who doesn’t want you. The woman who wants you. The woman who owes you absolutely nothing.
Because if we can worship Shakti but cannot respect a woman’s autonomy, perhaps we have misunderstood what Shakti was trying to teach us.
The offering was never supposed to be her freedom. The offering was supposed to be our reverence. And reverence without respect isn’t reverence at all. You cannot have a profound awe for something and then actively disrespect it.
This is not a war. It is a correction.
A correction of the idea that women are naturally submissive. A correction of the idea that men are naturally dominant. A correction of the idea that girls must be taught how not to be harmed instead of boys being taught not to harm.
A correction of the idea that a relationship gives someone ownership of another person’s body. A correction of the idea that a woman’s clothing is an invitation.
A correction of the idea that silence means consent. A correction of the idea that persistence is romance. A correction of the idea that protecting women means controlling them. A correction of the idea that spirituality means nothing more than rituals.
A correction of the idea that tradition is automatically morality. A correction of the idea that women must become smaller so men can feel bigger.
And perhaps most importantly, a correction of the idea that this is a battle between men and women.
It isn’t.
The battle is between domination and dignity. Between entitlement and autonomy. Between silence and accountability. Between patriarchy and human rights.
Because women are humans. Men are humans. And no human being should have to earn the right to feel safe inside their own body.
I don’t want a world where women become better at surviving men. I want a world where women don’t have to.I don’t want to teach women how to live at their own risk. I want the risk to stop being theirs alone.
That’s the real offering we owe each other. Not control. Not ownership. Not fear. Not silence. Just the simple, radical recognition that another human being is a human being.
That should have been enough all along.
– nk
