The Micro-Assaults of Woman-hood

Just like there's a spectrum of racism that includes 'micro-aggressions',

Women experience sexual exploitation mostly through a life of normalized micro-assaults. There are many situations where the circumstances around a boundary violation are so ambiguous, complex or fleeting that the most instinctual thing to do is just chalk it up as part of being a woman.

But those unexpressed reactions, they simmer. Often it's an anxiety that's ever-present— the latent awareness of the risk it is to exist in our bodies.

Sometimes it's a rage that we didn't know was there until we let it out— if we ever do.

Sometimes it's the shutting of our voice, Sometimes it's the screaming of our wombs. Sometimes it's a shame with nowhere to go but inwards.

Anxiety, Rage, Shame— this is the stuff that compounds in our bodies over time.

For years, I dulled my sensitivity to these pains.

Now that I'm feeling and processing what I've identified as micro-assaults, I'm also releasing on behalf of all the times this thing went unnamed.

Last week, I was moving through rage. I do honor her as sacred. And I know she'll be back whenever her medicine is needed.

All that said, today, I'm moving through forgiveness.

I'm forgiving the masculine to the extent where it feels safe to...

and I'm forgiving myself for every unasked question, every unsaid word, and for every time I self-exploited because that felt safe.

Thank you for witnessing.