Oh women, I sit here, hands stained by the weight of it, fingers curled around this pen like a lifeline—or perhaps a weapon. Each word feels like a confession, and I am haunted by the ghosts of those I cannot unsee: the mothers, the sisters, the daughters, all of them floating in the ether of history, silent but fierce. They press against my bones, crowd my heart with the ache of centuries. I imagine they’re screaming, but there is no sound, only a thick silence, draped like a fog across my mind.
How does one move in a world that does not want to see you? You cast your ballot, they say. You play your part. And yet I feel as though we are only writing our own erasure. I think of that man—crowned once more by those who clutch at fear as if it were salvation. They draw the votes with hands dipped in smoke, stained by the blood of all the women who dared to hope for something better. I want to scream, but my voice feels swallowed, like it was taken from me long before I knew I had it.
They tell us our rage is unbecoming, but it has become me, a second skin, a coat I cannot take off. Rage feels like the only language left to speak. It tastes of ash and rust, old as the birth of history. And when I close my eyes, I can see them, all the women who came before, standing shoulder to shoulder in a silence so loud it drowns out everything else.
I think of the majestic women of color who walked this soil long before me, bound by chains visible and invisible, fighting for their dignity under the weight of a world that views them as less. Then there are the women who have grown new life inside them, yet cannot choose what will become of their bodies—told by men who have never known the deep, terrifying power of creation what they can and cannot do with that power. I see them, their bodies politicized, their choices swallowed by laws carved into their skin without permission. And what of the women who dare to love other women? Who hold hands in the quiet, who press their foreheads together in secret, afraid that love itself might be ripped from their grasp and put on trial?
What does this result say to us, to all of us who walk through this world with our guards up, who learn to keep our keys between our fingers, to cast wary glances over our shoulders, to modulate our smiles, soften our voices, dull our brilliance, just to feel safe? And now, in the highest seat of power, we are told, once again, that we are worth less than this. That we can be violated and dismissed, while the men who harm us rise higher and higher, their sins draped around them like medals.
I imagine the women who’ve fought, all of them alive in my blood, a lineage of rage and brilliance, of hope smothered and re-lit again and again — just to keep me from giving up. Virginia Woolf, with her sharp, ravenous mind, her demand for a room of her own, her refusal to be small. Susan B. Anthony, who fought until her very being ached, who sacrificed her comfort, her reputation, so that we might know something of freedom. Rosa Parks, weary but unyielding, claiming her right to sit with dignity, her quiet rebellion shaking an entire nation. Malala Yousafzai, who faced death for the simple desire to learn, to speak, to grow, as every girl and child should. And so many others, named and unnamed, their lives bent beneath the weight of men’s words, men’s rules, men’s laws.
I feel them in me—a terrible, roaring crowd of injustice. Their fury intertwines with mine, woven into the marrow of my bones. They have been quieted, overlooked, pushed aside, yet they hover over us all, a warning and a promise. I wonder if they are weary, if they are as tired as I am, watching us fight the same battles, walk the same paths, stumble over the same jagged stones placed to keep us contained.
But I am not contained. I am not theirs and I never will be. I was born with pain and strife in my blood simply because I am a woman, and still there it sits, something wild and sharp and unwilling to bow. I think of the women who were told to sit down, to lower their eyes, to bite their tongues, and I feel the burden of their restraint. I am tired of bearing it. I want to tear down every polite smile, every mask, every falsehood that keeps us small.
There is a power in this absolute female rage, a strength that they cannot understand. They choose him because he is easy, because he represents a world where they remain comfortable, where they remain untouched by accountability, by shame. But I know—I feel it, in my heart, in my intuition—that we are not the shadows of man, but their reckoning.
I write because I cannot scream, because I know that even my anger will one day be rewritten as hysteria. But I know this: we are here, and we will always be here, whether they choose to see us or not. We have built every human existence and every soul with life that only we can harness — we are the world, and the world is us. We are inevitable and endless, and we must not forget.