Voices

I used to be the one that pushed everyone away out of fear that I was too demanding or too toxic or “too much.” But I’m finally at a place in my life where I understand just how important it is to lean on your support system — and so I’m committed to not running away anymore.

My father was an abusive man, plain and simple.

That wasn’t all he was, but to my mother, that's who he was. He was a controlling individual who perhaps took the scripture, “Wives, submit to your husbands” a tad bit too literally — and when my mom didn’t submit, she paid the price. Often with a blow to the head.

Firmly middle-aged due to my 47 years, I’m fat and everything about me pretty much screams “Mom.” This means I no longer get sexually harassed. The closest I’ve gotten to being hit on in the last 10 or so years was that time a homeless man tried to touch my hair after I left the salon.

When it comes to the male gaze, I am now officially invisible.

A new, exciting trend is to have food pantries for college students. I talked to an AmeriCorps volunteer running one of these centers and she was matter-of-fact about the need — and how little is being done. Today’s college students may be young and single, living la vida loca. But more and more are what we call ‘nontraditional’: slightly older, employed full-time (or close to it), supporting a family, a veteran, etc.

Hunger for nontraditional students doesn’t mean surviving on ramen: It means they are not the only person in the household who's in need.

I spent my undergrad years as the president of the feminist organization, so I have a lot of experience spending time with feminists. The people I worked with were passionate, thoughtful, and often downright hilarious. And a lot of these people became my very good friends and people I admired.

Still, as my school was majority white, a lot of these feminists were white. And, sometimes, they were White Feminists.

As a woman of color, this was something that became difficult for me to navigate.

I always felt the reason I came out as genderqueer was so that I could finally feel like my body belonged to me — not some stranger.

But no, my body still belongs to society. My body still has to meet standards of people I don’t even know just so I can avoid being beaten or kicked out of the bathroom.

When I found out I was pregnant, I reluctantly made the choice to stay clean. I doubted my decision (both to have this baby and to stay sober) the entire pregnancy and was unsure of how I would feel or what I would do when my child was born. Everyone around me was unsure, too. My parents discussed contingency plans with my son’s father for when — not if — I relapsed. But I didn't.

There are so many reasons why I and countless other women walking down countless sidewalks aren’t smiling. Our rights are still being violated, still being stripped from us, and still being fed to presidential candidates as topics for the latest debate. We’re against fighting gender inequality, sexism, racism, homo- and transphobia, income inequality, gender stereotypes, domestic abuse, and the constant threat of rape.