Thoughts for the Eye

Men.

I don't hate men. 

They loom over me wherever I go, casting shadows of doubt and fear that control my every step. Men make mothers cry for justice, men strip away a girl's innocence, men define and deny my rights. It's always about men. They create the world we live in, shape the laws we follow, and claim ownership over every part of me. I am not mine—I belong to men.

But how can I hate men when I have a father?

At 13, I become aware of my body. At 13, I am told to cover up, to shrink myself under the weight of their gazes. Why must I be the one to hide? Why is a man not taught to respect? Why is it that laws punish a woman for protecting herself, but a man's violence is excused with little more than a shrug? Why does every law bend to cradle a man's comfort? It is not ladylike, they say, to speak out, but why is it acceptable for men to treat me like something less than human? They call it a man's nature.

But how can I hate men when I have a brother?

Men have oppressed, they have controlled, and they have shaped a world that sees women as nothing more than bodies to be possessed. Child marriage still exists. Women are forced to live lies, lives built on silence and submission. Our voices are muffled, our achievements diminished or handed over to a man. I cannot forget that. I cannot ignore it.

But I feel something deeper. Beneath the fear, there is a fire inside of me, one I cannot extinguish. It burns with the pain and the rage of all the women who came before me. I carry their sacrifices. I carry their strength. I owe it to them to make things right, to fight for the freedom they never had.

I can't hate men, but I can burn through everything they've built.