I used to think Women’s History Month was symbolic.

A collection of classroom posters. Black-and-white photos of suffragists in long skirts. Quotes in looping script shared on social media.

It felt historical. Distant. Settled.

Now I understand it differently.

Women’s History Month is not nostalgic. It exists because women were erased. It exists because women were excluded. It exists because women were denied power, voice, credit, safety, autonomy.

And it exists because rights gained are never rights guaranteed.

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It Began in Protest

Women’s History Month did not begin as a marketing campaign or a ceremonial recognition. It began in protest.

In 1908, women garment workers in New York marched for safer working conditions, shorter hours, and fair pay. They were working in factories where fires trapped them behind locked doors. Where exhaustion was normal. Where exploitation was routine.

Two years later, at an international conference, activist Clara Zetkin proposed an annual Women’s Day. It was a day to recognize working women and demand political rights. The first International Women’s Day was observed in 1911.

Decades later, in 1978, a small group of educators in Sonoma County, California organized the first Women’s History Week to ensure girls could see themselves reflected in textbooks.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed the first National Women’s History Week. By 1987, after sustained advocacy by the National Women’s History Project, Congress officially designated March as Women’s History Month.

It was never meant to be decorative. It was corrective.

Women’s History Month exists because history did not tell the whole truth.

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What Women Had to Fight For

When we look back, we often compress women’s progress into neat timelines. But each right came through resistance. Each gain required organizing, risk, and refusal.

Women fought for:

• The right to vote.

• The right to own property.

• The right to attend universities.

• The right to open a bank account without a male co-signer.

• The right to serve on juries.

• The right not to be fired for pregnancy.

• The right to file workplace harassment claims.

• The right to control their own bodies.

None of these were gifted. All of them were opposed.

And many were opposed fiercely.

The women who fought were called hysterical. Unfeminine. Dangerous. Disruptive. Ungrateful. Unpatriotic.

They were told to be quiet. To be patient. To be grateful for incremental change.

They refused.

And because they refused, many of us were born into freedoms our grandmothers never experienced.

We Did Not Arrive at Equality by Accident

It is tempting to believe that progress is linear. That once a right is secured, it settles into permanence. That society inevitably evolves toward justice.

History does not support that assumption.

Rights expand and contract depending on who holds power. Protections strengthen and weaken depending on who is vigilant. Economic independence grows and shrinks depending on policy, access, and opportunity.

Women’s History Month is a reminder that what feels stable can shift.

It reminds us that poverty makes women more vulnerable to exploitation. That workplace protections matter. That access to education matters. That the ability to vote matters. That economic independence is not a luxury — it is protection.

The women who marched in 1908 were not asking for inspiration. They were asking for survival.

The women who fought for the vote were not performing. They were risking imprisonment.

The women who pushed for workplace protections were not exaggerating. They were naming harm.

We do not honor them by romanticizing their struggle.

We honor them by understanding why they struggled.

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Why It Matters Now

We are living in a moment where many women feel unsettled.

Some feel angry.
Some feel exhausted.
Some feel afraid.
Some feel numb.

Many feel the ground shifting beneath policies, protections, and norms they assumed were secure.

Women’s History Month is not a distraction from that discomfort. It is context for it.

The women before us also lived in unstable moments. They also faced backlash. They also watched institutions resist change.

What they did not do was assume someone else would protect them.

They organized.
They educated.
They persisted.

They built networks of support. They funded their own movements. They learned the law. They ran for office. They wrote. They marched. They refused to shrink.

We are not gathered in one place. We are everywhere.

History is not something that happened. It is something that is happening.

Right now.

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How We Honor Women’s History Month

Not with a quote alone.

Not with a single post.

We honor it by protecting our independence.

By teaching younger women what rights cost.

By understanding the structures that shape our lives.

By supporting women-led organizations.

By voting, even when it feels small.

By building financial literacy and economic strength.

By refusing apathy.

By paying attention.

The most radical way to honor women’s history is to ensure it does not repeat itself.

The Quiet Power of Memory

There is something grounding about remembering that progress has always required courage.

We are not the first generation to feel uncertainty. We are not the first generation to feel resistance. We are not the first generation to be told we are “too much.”

And we will not be the last.

But we can be the generation that refuses to forget.

Women’s History Month is not about celebration alone. It is about vigilance. It is about memory. It is about honoring the women who fought before us by refusing to surrender what they built.

We carry their work forward not because we are dramatic. But because we are paying attention.

We are living in women’s history.

And what we choose, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our communities, in our votes, in our voices, will shape what the next generation reads about us.

This month is not symbolic. It is a reminder. History is still being written.

And we are holding the pen.

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The SAVE ACT is unlikely to pass the Senate with the number of votes needed this time. Don’t be tricked into thinking this is a win. Hopefully we’ve all learned by now that once they have their target in sight, they won’t stop.

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This administration will continue to challenge the rights and ability of many Americans to vote.

The government won’t directly repeal the 19th Amendment of our constitution. At least not yet. They’ll first make it more difficult for women to vote.

The Name Barrier

They aren’t simply asking for identification or proof of citizenship. They already have that information and so much more. They added the “name barrier” to specifically target women.

This restriction (if ever implemented) will affect you if you are a married woman who changed her name, if you are divorced, have a hyphenated name or a birth certificate mismatch.

When you don’t vote (or can’t), it makes it easier for them to keep chipping away at all of our rights.

The Cost of Apathy

It will take some effort.

Time.

Maybe money.

To maintain our voting rights.

The Women Who Fought Before Us

I think about the women and allies who fought for the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920.

The Suffragettes fought for women’s right to vote since the beginning of the 1800’s. Can you imagine how hard the fight was at that time in our history? Women’s voices were often silenced.

When we didn’t have a say in the laws that were established, women were property.

Laws prevented us from owning property and limited access to money. They kept women trapped in abusive marriages. The laws made us destitute.

Recent laws have once again taken our right to make decisions about our own bodies.

Our ancestors worked in restrictive times, tirelessly and for over a century. So many died before they saw laws changed.

Let’s not give the right to make decisions about our own lives away.

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What You Can Do

Here are something’s you can do to make sure your voice is heard in our government.

• Stay informed: League of Women Voters

• Check your voter registration

  • Get involved in local elections.

• Gather all of your legal documents

  • get copies of legal papers if needed

• Get or renew your passport

• Don’t change your birth name if you marry.

• Make a plan on how you will vote. There has been chatter about the post office. Vote early in the safest way possible. Reach out to a reputable organization if you need help.

Now is not the time to sit back. Prominent people in our government advocate for the removal of a woman’s right to vote. I cannot believe we’re living in times where I need to write these words.

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The Rhetoric Is Not Harmless

A right-wing pundit recently said on video that the “#1 political enemy in America is women”

These are not harmless statements. They get attention and increase the radicalization of dangerous and violent men.

He further explained that women constrain everything, every conversation and every man.

He lays on women’s shoulders responsibility for lowering the birth rate.

Our sympathy towards brown and poor people is dangerous.

Women are guilty because of our existence.

Swift punishment without due process.

His solution is imprisonment of all women. No exception. Until you adequately display subservience.

This should infuriate you but also clearly help you understand, directionally, where they want to take women.

Showing Up Now

Women, we’re in this for the long haul. Our ancestors fought for over a century to get us the right to vote. Voting is so much more than a ballot. It’s having a direct say in what happens in our lives, the lives of our daughters, and granddaughters.

There are so many crisis, injustices, and inhumane treatment of people at this moment in time. By design, our attention is constantly shifting from one horror to the next.

There are battles to be fought everywhere. We resist on many fronts, in multiple venues.

Voting rights is one of the key places where we need to show up. It’s the basis of our democracy right now.

I hate the process. I hate the time everything takes. And I hate the need to convince whole groups of people that women or other disenfranchised people are deserving humans.

Voting allows us to have a voice and advocate for our safety.

Waking Up

We’re all waking up to the degrees of debauchery we couldn’t have fathomed. We didn’t want to fathom. New devastating revelations are exposed daily.

The details are convoluted. A complicated organization of crime. The worst is likely unknown.

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How Power Actually Works

I think it comes down to the basic structure:

Few have absolute power, and their intent is to do maximum damage to the rest of us. You get to be in the “few” category if your race is correct or is beneficial. You get entry if you have the right amount of power, money, and influence.

I wonder if membership in the billionaire club is mandatory. Or a choice they make.

They share the philosophy that people are expendable. In fact, we’re not people to them.

What’s Coming for All of Us

It doesn’t matter what new rights violation impacts you or the cause you’re most passionate about, they are coming for all our rights and livelihood.

The simultaneous release of Epstein and company’s crimes and the Heritage Foundation’s “Saving the Family” plan makes clear their intent for women and children.

In their world, we are property, to own and do whatever they want.

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Evidence Without Consequences

1,000 victims’ testimony of crimes.
Over 3 million documents released with credible evidence and information to investigate.
Dozens of potential perpetrators named, walking free. An unknown amount of perpetrators still hidden.
And the one mentioned the most in the files is running the country.

Only one person held accountable. A woman of course. (Proximity to power won’t save you. You’ll go down first)

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No Accountability, Only Control

There’s been no accountability.

Perhaps there’s a desire to stop trafficking children and start breeding them.

Because the Heritage Foundation wants to cut any chance for girls to get a quality education. They’ll try to teach them to be a good wife and obey.

Their plan traps us in the home with no economic rights. And an inability to work outside the home.

Pumping out babies. They’ll give you a small tax break for the more kids you supply.

The result for is the same for women and children: abuse and trauma.

Now the patriarchy owns you completely.

Knowing Your Role

I’m a problem solver. And I’m incapable of obeying.

I’m not an expert in any of the various battlefields.

I’ve seen incredible lawyers, leaders, organizers, historians and other experts working so very hard trying to defend humanity.

But I can write.

For awareness.

See where you can get involved.

Share. Speak truth to power.

Why I’m Writing This

I was in a large, apolitical online forum recently. I watch the comment section to detect the temperature and sentiment of the attendees.

The sadness I felt after I clicked off the call engulfed me.

Some attendees expressed concern about our federally occupied American cities while others vehemently defended the violation of what used to be our sacred constitutional rights.

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Some may be in denial or blissfully naive. Others may be managing all they can handle. Their personal crisis takes priority.

I find myself searching for “my people” who agree that what’s happening in our country is horrifying.

When I’m out in public, at the grocery store or an appointment, I have an overwhelming desire to say:

“Are you seeing this?

Can you believe this is happening?

What are we doing as a community?

How can we help?”

Awareness, Complicity, and Choice

Many people see the danger of all that’s happening in our country. But more people than I ever expected are complicit, supportive, or oblivious.

The plans have been written. They have been releasing them to the public for years now. The current chapter of the playbook we’re living through could be named “Chaos”.

And yet, I feel a need to know what’s going on more than I feel the need to hide from the pain that’s being inflicted on a nation.

I have to know how I can help and how to prepare.

This Is the Strategy

Opportunities and rights don’t disappear all at once.

They may be eroded state by state or nationwide. They are eliminated by group or even a person’s belief system.

They may not be successful the first time they attempt to amend a rule or law. They keep trying. They sneak words in or cross them out.

Poof, next thing you know, it’s not against the law to sexually harass or assault you. It’s already only marginally frowned upon.

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Naming the Threat

Project 2026 takes a direct aim at the rights, access, and protections that keep women safe.

If they are successful, women will fully revert to being property. A commodity.

Girls especially, but all children will be unsafe.

The Heritage Foundation’s words are frightening.
I recommend you read them. Restoring America’s Promise | The Heritage Foundation

They are setting the political agenda to serve white men.

It isn’t benign words. They are also experts in the implementation of their plans.

Rights.
Access.
Protections.

All are being threatened.

Their strategy prevents women from living the life they choose. If any choice remains, it will be limited and most certainly detrimental to her safety.

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She will be vanquished and left to suffer.

Her life will not be her own.

The Distraction

As January comes to an end we are conveniently talking less and less about Epstein.

They’ve broken the law by not releasing the files. Now the Heritage Foundation takes a massive shot at women’s rights.

While the horrors of our federal government attacking US citizens is not only spreading fear and creating violence, it’s distracting us from laws enacted or the overturning of protections for women.

They protect predators under lock and key while covering up the most heinous, far-reaching crimes society has ever known.

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What Is Being Eliminated

1. Weaponize the 150-year-old Comstock Act to criminalize abortion pills

2. Embed “fetal personhood” across federal agencies

3. Strip away every federal safeguard protecting reproductive freedom

4. Eliminate the Department of Education

5. Eliminate protections for sexual assault survivors

6. Eliminate Title IX enforcement

7. Eliminate LGBTQ+ inclusion

8. Eliminate academic freedom

9. Eliminate ranked-choice voting

10. Weaken federal oversight of elections

11. Require proof of citizenship to register to vote

12. Cut Medicaid

13. Cut childcare

14. Cut workplace enforcement
(women will face more harassment, discrimination, and injury)

15. Enforce “the nuclear family”
(only a man and a woman, with the man as “the leader” of the family)

What This Actually Does

Bodily Autonomy & Reproductive Control

• Criminalizes abortion access
• Redefines women’s bodies through fetal personhood
• Removes federal reproductive protections

Impact: Women lose control over if, when, and how they give birth. They will face legal risk for healthcare decisions.

Education and Knowledge

• Dismantles the Department of Education
• Weakens Title IX protections
• Eliminates academic freedom

Impact: Fewer protections for girls and women in schools, restricted curriculum, and limited ability to teach or learn about gender, history, or civil rights.

Safety, Dignity, and Equal Protection

• Removes protections for sexual assault survivors
• Cuts workplace enforcement

Impact: Increased harassment, discrimination, and unsafe working conditions with fewer consequences for perpetrators.

Political Power & Democratic Participation

• Eliminates ranked-choice voting
• Weakens election oversight
• Adds restrictive voter registration requirements

Impact: Suppresses the political power of women, shrinking our ability to participate in democracy and having a voice in legislation impacting us and those elected officials representing us.

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Economic Independence & Care Infrastructure

• Cuts Medicaid
• Cuts childcare support

Impact: exposes women to greater financial risk, unpaid caregiving, or dependence. Especially negatively impacting mothers, disabled women, and low-income families.

Identity, Family Structure, and Social Control

• Eliminates LGBTQ+ inclusion
• Enforces a male-led “nuclear family” model

Impact: Polices gender, sexuality, and family life. It legally privileges male authority and restricting how people live, love, and parent.

The Endgame

Rights.
Access.
Protections.

Are all being threatened.

Women will be prevented from living the lives they would choose for themselves.

Economically.
Financially.
Socially.
Mentally.
Physically.

They are attempting to create a society where women are defeated and left to suffer. What they haven’t bargained for is the resilience of women.

We are the nucleus of this society.

Our strength transcends their cruelty.

They’ve underestimated our intelligence.

They haven’t taken into consideration our ability to organize and come together.

As the world is being set on fire, the Heritage Foundation releases a paper that tells us how we should all be living (by their standards, to achieve their conservative objectives).

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Their goal is to cage women early by making independence harder to achieve. Their timing is no accident. We’ve been focused on the other dumpster fire.

Women are not buying what the Heritage Foundation is selling.

And we’re not letting our daughters, granddaughters, sons, and grandsons buy it either.

“Saving America” by saving the family is once again making women pay the price to fix a broken system created by men.

A working society can’t survive when it doesn’t let its citizens decide how they want to live.

If or when they want to marry and whether or not to have children.

No reward will offset the costs of the rights they’ve taken away.

Fewer women are choosing marriage and children because men are a danger to our survival.

We have been hunted for eternity.

We live in a society where virtually no woman has been untouched by the violence of men.

They start wars and create them in the lives of women. This is the context women are making decisions within.

· 1 in 3 women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner

· 1 in 3 women have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner

· 1 in 5 women have been raped

· 1 in 10 women have been raped by an intimate partner

· 1 in 4 women have experienced completed or attempted rape

· Half of women report some form of contact sexual violence

· For girls under 18, 1 in 9 have experienced sexual assault

· If a woman is murdered, the odds are 1 in 3 that she was killed by an intimate partner

This represents only cases that were recorded.

Not counted are the women who never report their abuse because reporting your assault comes with many risks and consequences.

For a long time, we could pretend it wasn’t as bad as it is.

We have to be brutally honest with ourselves.

Women are being abused in record numbers while also having their rights stripped away.

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One at a time.

We can’t reside in a fantasy that doesn’t recognize the coordinated attack. The desire is for women to have less and less autonomy. These efforts have gained a lot of ground. They will keep pushing harder to confine women for their benefit.

Because of this stark reality, I’m consumed with what we can do, individually and communally.

I am no expert in any of the following areas. Go find the experts. They’re out there offering their help.

These are areas where we can focus our energy.

Rights have a way of disappearing when you demand access to them. This isn’t advice.

It’s simply a list of areas of your life to think about, perhaps make some decisions or take action. Taking action may set us up to maintain our power in the future.

I’ve created this survival checklist to get you thinking about things you haven’t considered, or to start thinking more deeply about places where there may be gaps.

Download the checklist by clicking here.

Marriage

It should be off the table.

The law doesn’t protect us. Fall in love. Build a life together. But with no-fault divorce being potentially eliminated and the future of financial laws uncertain, it’s not worth the risk.

Marriage used to mean survival for women. To eat and have shelter, you needed to marry.

The Heritage Foundation is offering money if you’re a “good little girl” and submit to their rules. Don’t take money from the government now for something you’ll be paying for the rest of your life. They don’t give money away for free. We know this.

They are buying your compliance.

I love love. I believe in love, in finding your person. It’s full of optimism and compassion. When it happens, nothing is more beautiful.

But it doesn’t need to be a legal contract. It should be a choice to live a combined life with shared sensibility.

Money

Have full access and awareness of your finances.

Full stop.

Know it all. All that might impact you.

Make your own. Have the ability to generate income.

Save more. Spend less. If you can, save enough for a time when you don’t have income.

Use the power of your money for good. There is power in boycotts and in directing your money to those who have earned it.

Gathering Supplies

1. Books.

The hold-in-your-hand kind. Get subjects that they’ve eliminated in certain states.

Find books on how to do useful things. DIY. Poetry. Literature. Stories about inspiring women doing courageous things throughout history. Art and knowledge will sustain us.

2. Emergency supplies.

Finally prepare for that natural disaster. But really this time. Get all the things you need.

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Overall Health + Wellbeing

Spend equal or more time in joy and gratitude to more than offset time spent obsessing over the latest disaster or injustice.

Touch grass. For real. Feel the sun on your face. Safely.

Sleep, eat, and move as well as you can, as much as you can.

Legal Stuff

Have your affairs and documents completed and organized. Finish any and all legal business. Wills, trusts, beneficiaries, etc.

Take care of any physical or medical thing you’ve been delaying. Get the checkups, blood work, mammogram, eye exam, dentist—especially if you have healthcare. As women, we often delay our own health until it’s absolutely necessary.

If you’re a woman of childbearing age, whether you do or don’t want kids, make a plan. Have supplies on hand.

Community

Build community. Meet your neighbors. Have a network of support. Make plans. Supporting your community through mutual aid will absolutely be the thing that allows us to rise when this regime ultimately falls.

It’s easy to look away. The reality of this world is hard to witness. Continue to be aware. You need to know how you can help and how you’ll be impacted. You’ll need to make decisions accordingly.

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They will continue to take aim at any mechanism women need to control their own lives.

• Reduce education access.

• Limit access to careers.

• Allow rampant, unchecked violence against women.

• Allow for the sexual abuse of children.

• Take away access to control our own bodies.

As they are questioning our voting rights and the legalization of child marriage increases.

It always starts with talking. The tick tick ticking away until every single one of our liberties is gone.

The violence and power used against women and minorities is because this is largely the group of people who want to live in harmony. This regime benefits when the population fights one another.

We know what oppression feels like. And we know it’s wrong. We know what can be if we unify.

The oppressors feel like they’re losing something. It makes them fight harder during this last gasp of patriarchy. Whatever they think they’ve lost was something they never had and something they’ll never get when this war is over.

Blaming groups, inciting violence, and taking rights away from people because of their failings won’t make them a success.

I pause for long periods hoping for a superhero ending. I hope someone or something will swoop in and change our course. The fantasy calms my nervous system.

The reality is we’re on a moving train. Sometimes it’s a bullet train and you can’t find your balance because it’s moving so fast. Sometimes it’s a freight train, moving slow and carrying heavy weight. People hop on and hop off. But it keeps moving and we need to be prepared.

We’ve learned too much.

We know too much.

We will resist.

We will reorganize.

And we will rebuild.

I’m curious about my mom’s journey as a woman. I’m fascinated by where she was and what she was doing during different eras of her life. I wonder if she had access to the rights women have today (or the rights that were fully available prior to the current US administration in 2025), how life would have been different for her. If she would have been a little less angry. Maybe she would have been happier.

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Maybe would have been a better woman.
A better mom.

My mom straddled an era of pre-women’s rights and the 1960’s and 1970’s when women were fighting so hard for equality. She had four children under 10 when women were reading Ms. Magazine and struggling to get access to birth control.

Born in 1938, she leaned towards the pre-women’s right era where access and freedoms were limited, and women disappeared behind their husband.

I straddled the two eras too. Patriarchal messaging and conditioning flooded my home and was in the air waves. I, however, lean more post-1974 women’s rights. I didn’t know a world without basic rights, even if equality, especially equal pay, was still a struggle. I knew no different.

Messages and Expectations

As a teen in the 1980’s, I saw professional women in their business suits (often with white sneakers) hurriedly making their way to their offices. 1988’s Working Girl showed smart ambitious women in the workplace. Making a difference. Being respected. (We won’t deep dive in the use of “girl” to infantilize women here). It thankfully offered an alternative to the typical dutiful wife trope or MTV vixen images of women during that era.

I had peak exposure to the “Oprah era.” For all its faults, verging on exploitation, wacky theories and platforming of dangerous men (Drs Phil and Oz)…

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Consuming media these days is like drinking water from a fire hose. Besides coming fast and furious, you must assess how real it is.

What is the intention behind what we’re seeing?

But media can do the thing it’s good at. It lets you see into lives of others. We witness events that are not part of our daily experience. We build community through similar experiences.

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Online, I saw a group of women fighting to save their girls from predatory men. They were fierce and unrelenting. They were once victims, now survivors, mothers, sisters and allies.

Those women and men in that room inspired me and filled me with pride. They showed up to face the power barrier that protects the accused instead of the victim.

Someone went live during the intense local school board meeting. In a small room, in a small town in Shelby County, Kentucky, eight board members and viewers online witnessed the frustration flung at the members.

They were called out for their inability to protect the girls in their schools from a series of at least four male staff members accused of grooming girls as young as 13. The latest one being the basketball coach.

The woman recording drove over two hours to attend the meeting. She has a strong following and used her voice and her platform to make us aware of the cruelty allowed at the school district.

Not a day goes by where we don’t see headlines of a new predator of young girls who is accused or apprehended for violating a child. And we see perpetrators not held accountable for their crimes. This behavior is being normalized, as intended, by the proponents of this behavior.

Where are the advocates for child safety? Advocacy is being in a position of power and using your power to stop the abuse of children. There is an army of protectors, shielding abusers from consequences. Simultaneously, there’s an army of women and advocates trying to be heard.

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Far too many have lost the purpose of their positions. Or worse, use their positions to gain access and proximity to commit crimes.

The attack of women and girls mirrors the behavior of the POTUS. He is littered throughout the Epstein materials. Credible evidence and testimony of his crimes exists and yet he gets to keep his job. He gets to remain a free man. So why wouldn’t a high school coach expect the same lack of consequence.

They have made preying on little girls acceptable.

Read that sentence again.

In small towns, in big cities, and hidden away on remote islands, preying on the lives of little girls is allowable.

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What courage looks like.

I saw what courage looks like when a community of women decided there was no other option than to stand up and fight.

In that small school board room, at least two victims showed up.

In a small town, where everyone you know knows details of what happened to you. They personally know the perpetrator. The community knows about the violation you wish every day didn’t happen. It’s the thing you wished didn’t haunt every moment of your day and night. It’s a shame you carry, that was never yours.

One of the victims was near the camera. Her jaw flexed and moved with emotion held in for a decade.

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She showed incredible strength and vulnerability in that small room. Her husband was vibrating with suppressed rage. Often he rose out of his chair, unable to remain seated. He offered his encouragement to his wife by lightly wrapping her shoulders with his arm, sensing when she needed the support.

He offered his voice in protest towards the end of the meeting. His rage and need to fight with the people responsible for allowing his wife to be hurt couldn’t be contained. His anger was directed at people whose job it was to protect children. His wife’s life has been shaped in devastating ways. She’s been affected in ways that likely only he ever gets to see.

The meeting was held two weeks before Christmas. One woman spoke up when the members were trying to end the predator discussion because they had other things to get done.

She rose and said, “everyone in this room has things to do tonight.” They had to feed their kids, go to work, do their Christmas activities, and any number of things on their impossible list. But they were committed to getting a predator away from their children.

One woman reminded me of all the women I’ve seen in a corporate job. She was trying to negotiate an outcome in a highly volatile situation. She understood processes and procedures. Her plea included her acknowledging the rules they must follow, while trying to get them to commit to taking action. She asked for action to get the predator away from their girls. It was a good strategy, appealing to what they are mandated to do. She kept up the pressure to take sincere, measurable and transparent action.

Another woman spoke up and shot an arrow through them personally, “I grew up with a lot of you.” They are neighbors and friends. These are people they trust. She implored them to do the right thing.

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Women, men, victims, and allies all showed up. I’m not sure if they got the specific outcome they wanted that night two weeks before Christmas, but maybe they got a different one.

It might be the best currency we have access to right now.

Attention and community solidarity

Keep shining the light. Keep gathering in groups to demand justice. When more of us show up together, in small rooms, and keep showing up, things change. Elected and appointed people should be pressured to work for the communities that elect and pay them.

To all the resisters out there keep
Showing up.
Speaking out.
Finding inspiration of the good in us

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Reference / Further Reading

Courier Journal — Investigation into the Shelby County school board meeting and allegations involving Chris Gaither (December 11, 2025). (Paywalled source)

Authors note:

As a woman, I’m drawn to the pattern of behavior and actions that seek to not only harm girls and women, but actions that have lifetime mental health implications and erode the future equality of women.

Grooming and harming girls is not just cruel abuse but a strategic first action that reduces opportunities for women to live the lives they choose, get the education they deserve, and find economic independence. I’m a witness who strives to increase awareness and action

The holidays exist in my mind in four distinct parts.

The lead up, a little frantic mixed with excitement. Muscle memory holds the
emotions learned and made permanent from a lifetime of Christmases.

The holiday days. The gatherings, celebrations and the challenges. Personalities
that don’t mix, unmet expectations.

It’s all so cautiously hopeful.

Then there is the slowdown. My favorite part.

It’s that space where relief from the holidays being over settles in.

It’s met with a reduced urgency in your day-to-day.

You get to pause, reflect, and experience the quiet moments.

Finally, after the New Year, it’s full steam ahead. Life, work, and the current state
of affairs start to pick up speed and invade more of your sacred time and energy.

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My holiday wish for us all:

Let’s stay in the sweet spot of the holidays as long as possible.

In the slow down period, we can bask in the rest and reflection. Don’t think about
the things that will consume you when this time is over.

We all need that time to fix our nervous systems. Take the time to breathe, or eat,
or sleep normally.

Enjoy the quiet moments in between.

This is important. Make sure you don’t jump into the New Year before absolutely
necessary. This is a dedicated time to make memories. The kind that you’ll look
back and remember. A time filled with hope and resilience.

I hope your holidays created happy memories that last a lifetime.

Keep Women Sick

⚠️ Trigger Warning: This article discusses pregnancy loss and medical trauma ⚠️

This is part 2 of my four-part series A Sick Nation (see part 1 here). It looks at the coordinated strategy to keep women sick and how women pay the highest price. A price that is being collected by our legislators.

The United States is actively trying to make residents sicker. Our health is being attacked on many fronts.

Reducing Access to Care

• Reducing or eliminating access to Medicaid and Medicare

• Making health insurance unaffordable and unattainable

• Increasing the difficulty of finding healthcare providers with hospital closures (Medicare/Medicaid impacts)

• Cutting off a pipeline of professional care workers by changing their classification

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Undermining Knowledge & Safety

• Reducing or eliminating funding for critical medical research

• Creating chaos by giving inaccurate information about vaccines and other medicines (ex Tylenol)

• Eliminating food safety requirements, testing, and reporting that makes us aware of dangers

Increasing Exposure to Harm

• Allowing increased exposure to toxins in our water, air and soil

• Rolling back decades long environmental protections including allowing chemicals that cause cancer and many other diseases used in and on our food

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Undermining Ability to Meet Basic Needs

• Making access to food subsidies less available to the most vulnerable among us

When you place these actions side-by-side, you begin to see the pattern. This is our government’s coordinated attack to make us sick. None of these actions are taken in isolation.

Women carry the heaviest burden of the outcomes these actions initiate. The destruction to our health has been engineered to cause the greatest impact to women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and the most economically vulnerable.

Women Will Carry the Burden

A sickly population will need to be cared for in the absence of our government’s ability to provide reasonable healthcare access or safety measures.

An already overworked and stressed mother, daughter, sister, friend will be called upon to provide solutions to illnesses she hasn’t been equipped or trained to treat. She’ll carry the emotional burden as the primary medical caretaker of her loved ones, creating a never-ending cycle of stress, causing additional health impacts that come with the caretaker role.

Her ability to contribute financially will be reduced as she becomes the person designated to miss work to care for and take her loved ones to get healthcare. Medical care that will be less available. The seriousness of sicknesses and diseases will increase as medical care comes at a premium, not just in cost, but time, energy and effort.

The agony and guilt watching her loved ones suffer will be intolerable. The management of her own health will be deprioritized as she loses sleep and goes without in service to those she loves.

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There will be a disproportionate impact on single mothers, low-wage workers, and BIPOC women. The trauma women will experience as legislation whittles away her freedoms won’t be able to be calculated. The repercussions will be handed out like punishment. A sick nation becomes an unpaid economy upheld by women’s labor.

But their punishment won’t stop at the emotional and physical. Across the nation they are criminalizing women.

The Criminalization of Women’s Health

Between June 2022 and June 2024, there were over 400 pregnancy-related criminal cases, including those for miscarriages, stillbirths, and pregnancy-related behavior prosecuted nationwide.¹

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In the year following the overturning of federal abortion rights, there were over 200 pregnancy-related prosecutions in only six Southern states.²

Consider the case of Brittany Watts from Ohio.

Brittany miscarried in her home on September 22, 2023. In the days leading up to it, her doctors told her the devastating news that her fetus was nonviable.

Brittany spent two days in the hospital, waiting 19 hours to get care. She begged them to save her life. She needed to be induced. Because of Ohio abortion laws, Brittany’s routine care was not provided. She likely waited while hospital executives, lawyers, and medical staff debated whether to save her life.

She left the hospital. I imagine Brittany felt like staff members were going to kill her. She was forced to live in a horror movie in real life. Fleeing must have felt like survival.

She miscarried at home. She survived something that could have easily resulted in her death, causing her body to be septic.

Seeking medical care, she went back to the hospital. Staff called the police. Her home was searched and they ultimately charged her with abuse of a corpse.

The Ohio grand jury declined to indict her.³

This time.

That’s the point. The terror is effective, even if the system backs down.

This time, the grand jury didn’t indict her. Will the next Brittany Watts end up in prison? Or will she be a statistic in the second-biggest cause of maternal deaths?

The sheer volume of women being prosecuted for health outcomes beyond their control is staggering — but it’s not accidental. It’s intentional and strategic.

The medical abuses inflicted upon women through the reduction of adequate care combined with the prosecution of women is a level of cruelty that should be criminal.

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The current regime in power is tactically challenging a woman’s right to access healthcare, therefore eliminating bodily autonomy completely and making her criminally accountable for outcomes she cannot control and for medical results that could have been cured.

Consider RFJ, Jr’s statements about Tylenol. The US’s Secretary of Health and Human Services at a press conference announced the decades long over the counter medicine caused autism with no studies, history, or data to substantiate his claim. He was flanked by POTUS himself and Dr. Oz.

It’s not a far-reaching conclusion to assume with RFK Jr’s recommended health tracking and other available data on women’s health, unstudied false conclusions about the health conditions and the causes, women will be increasingly accountable for health outcomes out of their control.

Once we normalize false medical claims not substantiated by data and science, but delivered with drunken authority, it makes weaponizing health data against women easy.

An additional intended outcome is to make women suffer needless when there are solutions available.

Under their control (“under their eye”), the number of crimes women will be responsible for will undoubtedly increase as they tighten the rope around our necks, imprisoning us in our own bodies.

If by some miracle we can stop these actions and begin to treat women like human beings again, it will likely be decades before we eradicate the cancer in our government and repair and re-fund our systems.

And beneath all of this is a truth women have always known: none of these policies exist outside patriarchy’s design and execution of these inhumane tactics. When you take a closer look, the devastating outcomes of a broken system reveal themselves as anything but accidental.

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The Feminist Perspective: Cause and Effect

The patriarchy believes that sick women cannot rise. Sick women cannot resist.

Keeping women sick and exhausted is an attempt to keep us from fighting. It keeps pushing money up the capitalist ladder on the backs of women’s free labor. This strategy keeps women relying on a system that doesn’t care if she lives or dies. If she thrives or suffers.

Women and men alike are smothered by patriarchy and authoritarianism, impacting our financial independence by feeding the ladder of fascism.

It’s been determined already who is dispensable in this system; and who they deem worthy to trade our suffering and servitude to the patriarchy.

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Let’s use this platform to share experiences and create solutions. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments.

In Part 3, we’ll talk about exactly who is harmed and who profits when a nation chooses sickness over care.

Author’s Note

My reflection and commentary come from seeing patterns, lived experience, and observation. Project 2025 is nothing if not the most complicated project plan I’ve ever seen. In my over 30-year corporate career I’ve seen and created many. I see the army of project managers approaching or meeting all their milestones.

It starts with flooding the airwaves with rhetoric, bringing test cases through the conservative states, then attempts to make their policies nationwide. Everything is meticulously planned. Schedules were created. Timing is choreographed. Risks are mitigated and solutions implemented when resistance is effective in the forms of protesting, legal challenges, elections, speaking out, boycotts, and building community.

And I see the cliff this country is driving us to. I see the systematic destruction of our health at the hands of our government. And I see the first and most affected populations of women, children, BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and the economically disadvantaged being pushed over the edge. I believe that silence is complicity. My hope is that by using my voice to show patterns, impacts, and bring humanity to those being treated inhumanely, together we can resist and rebuild a system that doesn’t harm us.

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References:

¹ Pregnancy Justice, Criminalization of Pregnancy Report, 2024.

² Pregnancy Justice, Southern States Criminalization Analysis, 2023–2024.

³ CBS News, “The Ohio Woman Charged with a Felony After a Miscarriage Talks Shock of Her Arrest” (Brittany Watts), 2023.

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This is an autopsy of the women who keep patriarchal power alive and the roles they embody. Patriarchal systems survive not just through men’s violence, but through the women who sanitize it, normalize it, and unload it on us as if it’s our burden to carry. They reinterpret trauma as leadership and sanitize cruelty in the name of patriotism.

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In patriarchal structures (political, religious, or cultural) these women become the acceptable face that masks the abuses of powerful men.

There’s a never-ending group of women who stand next to men hell-bent on ensuring women never achieve equality while making this world unsafe for girls and women.

I marvel at their betrayal. I try to imagine their motivation. Perhaps it’s their deep conditioning from their youth. Maybe it’s a form of Stockholm syndrome where they develop deep bonds with their oppressor.

It could very well be their own desire and ambition that would have them settle for proximity to power. Power that is temporary and quickly removed when they’ve outlasted their usefulness or stepped out of line.

She may never evaluate her motivations as long as she’s getting the validation she longs for.

Regardless of their motivations, their functions are unmistakable.

She performs her job as the defender, the minimizer, the moral enforcer, or the punisher.

The Roles They Play

Karoline Leavitt, The Defender

The patriarchy survives through women who normalize the abuse of men. The Defender is focused on redefining the abuse that is inflicted on women. They reinterpret misogynistic actions as strength, honesty or leadership.

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The job that they have is to train the witnesses to doubt what they saw and manufacture truth, not display reality. She crafts double standards on the spot. She creates uncertainty, making you question reality and the severity of what occurred.

As White House press secretary she’s uniquely positioned to defend POTUS more than anyone else. She does it, feigning annoyance at the mere question of his latest moral failing. She is supposed to be the arbiter of truth, telling the story behind the story. She manufactures a reality that distorts reality.

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The incident that occurred on Air Force One in November 2025 when the president berated a female reporter, calling her “piggy” in response to a routine question. She huffed her exasperation at the reporters asking her to explain his actions. She slipped firmly into her defender role with the following statements:

“I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near daily basis.”

She also said:

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Every headline shows up like a puzzle piece. A new image forms in your mind. Patterns are revealed that display a system designed to collapse.

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The news of Tatiana Schlossberg’s (daughter of Caroline Kennedy), terminal blood cancer diagnosis filled my social media feeds on Sunday, November 23rd. On any other timeline it would be the sad recognition of a family you’ve never met who has had far too many public tragedies.

But on this timeline, and with Tatiana’s essay published in The New Yorker, “A Battle with My Blood,” her family’s story of a devastating diagnosis becomes another warning signal of the direction we are heading.

Her vantage point is unique, as she and the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., both come from the same American political family dynasty.

Many in the newer generations try to pay forward the good deeds and good fortunes inherited from their fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

When Tatiana was receiving treatment, RFK Jr.’s confirmation was happening simultaneously. A moment that can be interpreted as the beginning of the decimation of the US healthcare system.

The country and the system are shirking their responsibility to provide care for and treat people by allowing access to fewer existing or new treatments. Every other developed nation provided more care to their residents before this regime took over and now it’s getting worse.

Countless actions have been taken to ensure our population gets sicker and sicker.

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In this capitalist society you might deduce that sick people + expensive treatments equal richer companies (pharmaceutical, supply, insurance, and others). Then this administration took action to shut down the pipeline of health providers by removing its professional status.

Less medication and fewer people to treat the sick.

Breaking an entire system to mistreat human beings is straight up evil. When people can’t get treated, they become a more sickly, dependent population.

Remember, not so long ago, the longest government shutdown in US history. They told us it was because of healthcare costs. One side wanted you to pay more, one didn’t.

Wherever this legislation lands, the goal is to be less insured. If you can’t pay for health insurance you are less likely to seek healthcare, especially in the preventable stage.

It creates an inability to manage your own health.

Tatiana’s is one small story in a sea of stories without the insulation of being a Kennedy and all it brings.

A coordinated strategy outlined in Project 2025 feels different when you see and feel it implemented. You’re witnessing the suffering you knew was imminent.

Subscribe to my Substack to receive notifications when Part 2 (“Keeping Us Sick”), Part 3 (“Who Suffers, Who Benefits”), and Part 4 (“What We Can Do to Take Back Power”) are posted, where I’ll explore the real-world impacts and strategies to resist.

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How The World is Gaslit into Tolerating Violence Against Women

We are shown a man verbally abusing a woman in her place of work. The videos stream in our social media feeds. We are led down a path that tries to convince us that this behavior should be tolerated. The written transcript is scrubbed from official websites to silently make it go away. Their objective is to make us believe it didn’t happen.

And when that doesn’t work, they insist it wasn’t as bad as what we saw. And when that gaslighting fails too, they reach for the oldest tactic of all: convincing us she deserved it.

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The Pattern

The violence women experience follows a pattern. It begins small and escalates. Each step in the pattern serves a purpose. The purpose is to demean, humiliate, and create fear.

The next time the victim encounters it, they’ve already been beaten and broken down. They are less likely to fight and more likely to excuse the behavior.

America’s abuser-in-chief has been tormenting people, and our country, and our world, with his tactics, virtually unchecked.

This coercive control attempts isolates all of us in our fear.

He wasn’t merely telling one professional woman “Quiet, quiet, piggy.” He was exerting his power over all of us, especially women. This wasn’t the beginning of his cruelty, and it won’t be the end.

Coercive Control In Public View

Patterns of domination don’t erupt suddenly; they evolve. And as they evolve, they move into the open.

Violence never begins with a single punch.

It may include physical assault eventually, but it always relies first on escalating intimidation, verbal degradation, emotional manipulation, and financial control.

Its purpose is domination.

Public humiliation is not accidental. It is a deliberate tactic. It’s designed to isolate victims and signal to everyone watching who holds power.

He walks around with impunity, convinced he’s untouchable. That blend of entitlement and a fragile ego makes him particularly dangerous.

He’s a wannabe dictator who needs to prove he’s in control. Not in control of himself, but of every person around him.

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When Power Becomes Public Violence

When any man, including a president, lunges at a woman, points in her face, tries to silence her, calls her names, shames her body, and uses his size to overwhelm her, on camera, we are not witnessing an intense disagreement.
We are witnessing domination tactics performed for the world to see.

He serves up additional punishment by threatening her career. He didn’t verbal express that her job was in danger during the interaction, but the implication was obvious. And it’s not a stretch, considering his history of retaliating against late-night hosts and news organizations. His verbal assault wasn’t just disrespect, it was a threat to her employment and financial stability. She’s a working, traveling reporter trying to do her job. Her job is to ask him questions.

When someone wants to dominate and instill fear, they use their body. Lunging. Finger-pointing. Looming. All of it is designed to force compliance.

We’ve been excusing and tolerating his venom since 2016. Well, many people have. Many have not. Pundits, however, keep offering excuses, leading to mass acceptance of his hateful and dangerous rhetoric.

So it’s no surprise this behavior remains in his repertoire. It’s meant to shame and humiliate his victims. It has been unnervingly effective. There is no bottom. No end to the harm. There’s only escalation until full compliance or annihilation.

And here is the deeper truth:

When a leader performs violence publicly, it conditions the public to tolerate it. It numbs outrage. It normalizes the intolerable.

Escalation Isn’t Accidental

What’s striking now is the rapid, dangerous escalation. A clear sign of a perpetrator losing control.

This began with recorded verbal aggression of what we know happens privately. Now he wants everyone to witness it. He needs the spectacle to regain dominance.

He’s triggered by the Epstein files nearing release.

And so the aggression escalates into threatening elected officials with execution and manufacturing the conditions for the use of military force.

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The Cycle of Escalation

These patterns are predictable.

Verbal assaults precede physical intimidation, which precedes sexual violence.
It’s not random. It’s increasingly bold and brazen.

We had someone running for president in 2016 who bragged about mistreating girls and women. He eventually became an adjudicated rapist. Two dozen girls and women have accused him of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s. He’s close buddies with a renowned child sex trafficker and was implicated in testimony by a 13-year-old girl of sexual abuse.

There have been countless opportunities to hold him accountable. Time and again, powerful people chose not to.

A System Built To Protect Predators

Society refuses to band together to protect women and children.

How many people, from law enforcement to the courts to the media, reduce the violence against women to a “misunderstanding” or an “inconvenience” she should simply get over?

If perpetrators were held accountable the first time, the next victim would likely be spared.

Violence continues in small, invisible ways no one sees. It unfolds in homes, workplaces, online, and on the streets. And now, it is televised, committed by a powerful man, in front of our very eyes.

From Jesse Butler in Oklahoma to the sitting president to Epstein himself, predators are freed, forgiven, or handed a slap on the wrist. They are released to wreak more havoc on society.

Clear, irrefutable evidence is never enough. Women’s worth is traded against the privilege of men.

What We Already Know

We don’t need more videos, pictures, or testimony to prove what we already know.
We don’t need the files to believe the truth.

These documents are being used as political chess pieces when they are the stories of little girls being tortured.

We’re again forced to participate in a process that re-victimizes women while perpetrators are “out in the streets,” free to inflict more harm.

I don’t have the solution to fix a corrupt system. My voice alone cannot convince a culture that treats women as property that we are not. My words may never reach the men who harm us to tell them women deserve safety and equality.

What I do know is this:

Women and our allies carry the burden of advocating for one another. We are tasked with naming violence when it happens. We are expected to silence those who excuse it.

And we will. Because refusing to stay silent is the first act of liberation.

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A Hit Piece Disguised as a Conversation

The New York Times published an opinion hit piece on women, working women, liberals, and feminism on Nov. 6. “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace” may have been an intentional rage-baiting interview, released at precisely the wrong time.

Ross Douthat interviews Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant as they take turns demonizing women with one weak trope after the next. I can’t help but obsess over the truth that feminism is the reason why they are allowed to express their dangerous opinions of women.

What is equal parts disturbing and calculated is the timing of the piece. In November 2025, when the Republicans suffered election losses from coast to coast while women’s rights are under daily attack, framing feminism as the problem isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s tactical and strategic.

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Feminism Didn’t Break the System – It Exposed It

Let me clear up what cannot be denied, as posed in the article’s titled question.
If the workplace is ruined, the blame sits squarely on the shoulders of the men who created the systems and infrastructures.

Furthermore, if the system is being ruined by “liberal feminism” maybe it’s a sign that the system needs to be destroyed. This is especially true of a system that created the double derogatory insult to women by calling them both liberals and feminists. We all know how conservatives like to wield those words to drive hate towards women. This rhetorical sleight of hand isn’t new. It’s the same strategy they always use to pit women against one another whenever progress threatens power.

The “Virus” Fallacy and Other Misogynistic Metaphors

Early in the interview, Sargeant says, “There’s a strain of feminism that sees any difference between men and women as a threat to our equality.”

Minimizing feminism as a “strain” equating it to a virus or sickness is more misogynistic than my brain can handle at 8 a.m. It is dismissive and reductive to the efforts that allow for your education and ability to write and speak your words. This contradiction is so large it could only exist in the echo chamber of patriarchy where one is arguing two opposing realities.

Feminism doesn’t ignore the differences between men and women and doesn’t consider those differences a threat to our equality. We view clear and obvious inequality as the threat to women and their human rights.

Wokeness as the New Dog Whistle

Andrews proceeds to use the tired right-wing dog whistle of “wokeness” and attributes said wokeness solely to women as the reason why systems are not working the way they were intended to, when in fact, the systems were working to keep women and minorities in their place, away from positions of power and authority.

Denying the need and inevitability of societal evolution is a conservative calling card, hearkening back to the “good ole days” when life exponentially benefited the few and that nostalgia is the real virus.

The interview deviates from their assertion about inequality being key to success, using examples of women not being able to compete adequately on the 3-point line or doing push-ups on Wall Street.

The ridiculousness of these two points should go without saying. This is where the anti-feminist women like to say “Gotcha! See, women can’t compete fairly.”

Business is about results. These right-wingers use binary definitions and obscure arguments of how results are achieved in a system built to exclude women, minimizing the value women bring while increasing the potential for exclusion and danger.

The next lie that they tell themselves and their viewers is that feminism is built on individualism. They portray an image of us out here saying “what about us,” when we are saying, “don’t exclude us” from opportunity. Don’t give economic viability opportunities only to men and exclude women.

It further makes the argument that we don’t want people to depend on us. Sisters, people have been depending on us all our lives. We want to be able to better fulfill those roles without the patriarchal systems throwing roadblocks up along our path.

We want to show up without fear, to be safe, and achieve the economic viability required of us. We also want to be considered full human beings who are highly skilled, with ambitions and desires.

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The Myth of Women’s Fragility and Men’s Failure

They speak about the failure of women without objectively discussing the clear failure of men who have largely worked to control and destroy this planet.

The three elderly men on this planet causing immeasurable harm to millions of people is conveniently left out of the conversation. But again, it’s easier to blame women for men’s failures than to confront the structures men built to protect themselves from accountability.

The Call is Coming from Inside the House

Their assertion that men place “themselves between an outside threat and their family and their country” as a positive attribute when they are the ones doing the threatening is outrageous.

The call is coming from inside the house.

Women’s response to threats and violence, our own personal threats and society’s, is not “wokeness.” It’s PTSD, survival, and compassion for other human beings.

“The Weak” and the Real Source of Harm

In the interview, Douthat asks, “Is wokeness a mode of trying to get people to care about ‘the weak’?” He talks of “the weak” like it’s a conscious choice. People are weakened through the actions of a systemically racist society, and where most of the abuse and violence is perpetrated by men and inflicted on women and minority populations.

The blame is placed on women for wanting equality, minorities for wanting opportunities but not on the patriarchy that holds equality and opportunity like a prize to be earned instead of a right that is deserved.

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Band-Aids on Gunshot Wounds

They banter about solutions like Band-Aids on a gunshot wound. Let’s never address the root cause of the broken systems.

The interview goes on to sympathize with Google’s James Damore’s misogynistic views of men and women in the workplace, and how he was fired for his views largely due to legal ramifications.

Corporations must make legal and financial liability decisions all the time. So, they fired him. Certainly, he was not fired for the discriminatory culture against women he created.

That should be enough. But when it’s likely to cost the corporation money through discrimination lawsuits, he’s gotta go. That’s a system that continues to uphold patriarchy. That’s the problem that needs to be fixed.

Conservative Feminism is Not Real

Answering the question posed in the subtitle, asking if “conservative feminism” can fix what liberal feminists broke. The answer is there is no such thing as a conservative feminist. Back in the day when we could debate conservative and liberalism along the lines of economic policy and government intervention in our lives is long gone. That train left the station in 2016, when conservative politics traded principle for power. And I don’t know if it’s ever coming back. You cannot be a feminist while picking and choosing what rights you think are ok for women not to have.

When they come for one of us, they come for all

When they eliminate one right, they begin to dismantle the rest.

This is what conservative women are not understanding in the landscape of what’s happening. Rights are never eliminated all at once. They are taken away, one at a time regardless of your conviction that you’ll be the exception.

The Only Conversation Worth Having

There’s one statement that I generally agree with: Wokeness is eliminating conversations. We can start with a conversation that doesn’t insult one another and lob words like wokeness as an insult.

The fringe and specific debates that need to occur in industries willing to evolve should be had by the experts in those specific fields. Evolution is hard. Individual situations are complex. Conversations and compromise should continue.

But the truth is, I’m unwilling to have a conversation or a debate that eliminates my ability to make decisions for my own life. There will be no negotiation on the levels of subjugation that is tolerable. Because there is none.

Using extreme examples of equality and feminism experienced by small populations, where feminism has “gone too far”, negates the real-world threats of eliminating education and career opportunities for women, bodily autonomy, voting rights, and the right to fight against your abusers.

The cult of patriarchy relies on the labor of women to support their ideals. It always has. The white woman standing next to the tyrant makes the abuses more palatable to the masses.

To the women who advocate against the rest of us, know that we’ll be here when you’ve overstayed your welcome on Team Misogyny.

Because we’re continuing to fight for your ability to live your life the way you want, say the words you want to say, even if it harms the rest of us.

The Real War on Women

This isn’t just an argument in a newspaper. It’s part of a coordinated attempt to roll back women’s rights: our autonomy, our safety, our freedom to exist as equals. The tactic they use is propping up smart and articulate women to plead the case for inequality. Don’t buy into the seemingly harmless arguments.

We can all agree on this much: we will not go quietly. And we refuse to remain silent.

Author’s note: The real danger isn’t in opinion pieces like this. It’s in the normalization of ideas that make regression sound reasonable. Stay evolving. Stay awake. Stay loud.

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“What are you? A feminist?

It was hurled as an insult. The impact stung the same as being called a bitch.

I grew up in a world where the word feminist was spoken like a curse. I didn’t know the true meaning: power, solidarity, equality.

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Anti-feminism wounds are chronic, and symptoms often go undiagnosed. The injuries show up as questioning our own truth, excusing men’s poor behavior, and doubting our own intelligence and abilities. I was indoctrinated to believe being a feminist was something you did not want to be.

And now, in 2025, I find myself questioning every belief I’ve ever had. Where did it come from? Who benefits from me believing it? What forces orchestrated not only the implantation of the belief, but my once strong conviction that it was true?

I wished I’d known about the groups of people who were actively trying to make women hate ourselves and hate one another. The indoctrination runs deep.

Challenged Convictions

Being declared a feminist made you instantly unlikeable. Meanwhile you were brainwashed into coveting likeability

Being a feminist made you immediately un-feminine. At once you were considered visually offensive.

You had to be the right amount of smart to be tolerable. Not too smart to be threatening, intimidating, or arrogant.

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Women clock the danger before we have the language to describe the experience.
Before we know what the words mean when we first hear them.
Before we learn about the statistical probability of violence committed against us.

We learn to avoid isolated rooms.
We cross the street and quicken our step when there’s a man following too close, for too long.
We hold our keys like a weapon.
We check the backseat.
Whether from an abundance of caution or from PTSD carved by experience. We scan rooms and double check doors.

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The Early Warning Systems

I clocked the danger early — before I had language or knew what certain words meant. I felt the energy of the women around me — their unease, their fear, their sadness, their shame and their anger.

I felt their emotions long before I felt my own.

All women have the grave opportunity to witness physical and sexual violence. Experienced firsthand or being a witness to the remnants of another woman’s experience.

Girls. We’re not women when we first have our first experience. We are children when our stories begin.

The Mall

My mom and I clocked the violence against my older sister at the mall. The memory of a 6-year-old is in short clips — the imprint on your mind, a physical reaction or emotion.

I was standing back with my mom as my older sister was buying something at the counter. Imagine when you’re an adolescent doing grown-up things on your own like paying for something without a parent.

But we were there, my mom and I, our eyes locked on my sister, while we held hands.

She was doing a grown-up thing but still she looked young to this 6-year-old.

She was clocked by an older man while in line. She was clocked for her youth. She was clocked as being alone.

He jumped in line behind her and started rubbing himself against my pre-teen sister. The energy jolted through my mom’s body to mine when she clocked the assault.

During these days my mom was a suppressed volcano of anger about to erupt. Her anger was visibly coursing through her body, getting stiffer while her lips contorted with rage.

I clocked my sister’s innocence. And I clocked my mom’s anger.

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Cat calls

I clocked the direct hit of danger, not just the shrapnel, when I was 10. As a latch key kid, I was afforded way too much freedom, way too early. I already knew the dangers.

When walking alone, grown men would hang out car windows shouting. Words I didn’t understand. Gesturing with their hands. Signs I didn’t recognize yet.

Fear rose within me. I clocked the fact that I was small in every way. I was at a disadvantage. I moved as far away from the curb as I could. I clocked distance, speed, and escape routes.

Embarrassment emerged. I caused this reaction.

Already I believed the lie: it was the woman’s fault for causing it, never the man’s for doing it. So, shame settled firmly into my bones. I’ve done something to deserve this.

Then I invited in my unnamed rage. It grows slowly, over time. Rage that is often malignant, breaking you down from the inside out.

At 10 years old, I clocked the fear.

I clocked the embarrassment. I clocked the shame. And I clocked rage, brought on by the violence of men.

The Sauna

At 14, I clocked the escalation of danger. Flying 2000 miles away from home, every other summer with very little supervision made me feel older than I was.

With a false sense of security, a locked apartment complex seemed safe. I had the introvert’s guide to an amazing summer. My books and magazines as companions. California sun, the apartment pool.

Most days, I was alone.

Until I wasn’t. My memory is in pieces. Trauma will do that to you. You remember the physical sensations more than the visual ones.

I was a child, feeling older than I was. My age and experience didn’t prepare me for what could be. You have a sense that you can handle any situation with no concept of what real danger is.

He disarmed me with flattery and kindness.
This 40-year-old man clocked the gaping wound in a child, left by divorce, loneliness, and mountains of trauma already stored in my soul.
I clocked the switch from light to dark. In the sauna where he took me and in the color of his eyes.

My body clocked a survival instinct so strong, I couldn’t ignore it. I took off.
I was allowed to take off.
I clocked my powerlessness.

I clocked my luck. I knew then, as we all know, that for an outcome like mine there are millions of women with a more devastating one.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Time doesn’t just bring personal stories. It reveals the systems that protect men while punishing women. Time offers the opportunity to deconstruct the countless messages imprinted in our minds. It brings compassion and solidarity. We’re able to clock the patterns that exist in our shared experiences. We are given endless opportunities to clock the abuse of women.

I continued to clock the predatory behavior of old creepy men when a neighbor clocked my vulnerability while tanning in my near-private backyard at 15.

I clocked how alcohol reduced your safety, when girlfriends on the verge of passing out from too much youthful consumption were swarmed by young creepy men in bars and clubs. They were unable to interrupt the pawing of the boys, so I stepped in when I clocked their danger.

I clocked the unimaginable. Stories of sexual assault told by women when they were children.

I learned the language and the meaning of words like date rape, molestation, post-traumatic stress disorder.

I clocked when the patriarchy upholds these abusive acts in an attempt to keep us weak and relying on a system that actively works against us.

I clocked the revictimization of women who tearfully told their stories.
I watched how women are perpetually judged and blamed for the actions of men in legal arenas, office settings, and society at large.

I absorbed when women recounted their terror only to be told, explicitly or implicitly, that they were lying, embellishing or deserved it.

I clocked how men are valued as human beings over and above women. We wouldn’t want to ruin a young man’s future by holding him accountable for the abuse he inflicted.

And I’ve clocked the erosion of women’s rights, the intensification of abuse, and societal acceptance of the intentional pain inflicted on women—young and old.

It became not enough that alcohol makes you vulnerable—you must guard your drinks for substances that make you even more unconscious and defenseless.

The assaults shift form, but the intent is the same: control. Because now I’m watching in an era after women have lost the ability to choose her own healthcare, that they want to make abuse of girls legal through proposed reductions to the age of consent.

They want to make sure we’re quiet and trapped by reducing equality and access to education. They want to erase our historical achievements to make us believe we are incapable of greatness. They want to take away our ability to escape abuse by ending no-fault divorce. They want to strip us of equality in the workplace. But what they never understand is this: greatness is in our DNA. Our safety is not negotiable. Our ambition cannot be extinguished.

Women are clocking the danger at every turn.

It’s hard not to turn away from the daily barrage of offensives. Another story, another victim, another repeat offender. We’ve fully woken up to the fact that our predators are not just men but our government and far too often, our own sisters.

When we hear another account, we get triggered. Memories of our own experiences flood into our bodies. We seek refuge in the trauma responses that helped us survive. We enter survival-mode again by freezing, fighting or dissociating.

Those responses are inaccurately assumed to make us weak, but it does the opposite. We emerge from feeling numb to being resolute.

Whether we realize it or not, with every danger clocked, our power grows.

We will not settle for proximity to power that leaves us vulnerable; we want equal power in the world, and absolute power over our own lives, bodies, and circumstances.

Women have the natural ability to pool our intellect, rage, and strength. I’m inspired and motivated by the talents and resilience of women I’ve clocked throughout my life. I carry their bravery with me.

I’ve watched countless women fight, heal their deep wounds, becoming fearless and resourceful. I carry their warrior spirit in my heart.
I listen to heartbreaking stories told with eyes blinded by tears but with a fire in their heart. I carry with me my pen and my words to tell their stories and mine.

We all carry with us the agility we’ve gained through our survival.

We speak for women when they are unable to tell their unspoken stories because they burn with a desire to be understood.

We build communities and provide nurturing.

We will never stop clocking. We will not stop rising.

Clock it. Speak it. Stand Together. We are not alone

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