It’s heavy being a woman lately.
You open your phone and there’s another story about a woman being assaulted.
Another woman killed by a partner.
Another woman having to explain why what happened to her was wrong.
A woman on a plane allegedly subjected to a man pleasuring himself beside her.
A Cornell sexual assault case being revisited amid scrutiny over a reported disciplinary response involving essay-writing.
Women in Australia continuing to experience intimate-partner violence at devastating rates.
And then women are expected to just…
Go to work.
Date.
Travel alone.
Wear what we want.
Trust people.
Be friendly.
Not be paranoid.
We are taught to scan the room.
Share our location.
Hold our keys between our fingers.
Check the back seat.
Watch our drinks.
Notice who’s following us.
And somehow the burden of preventing violence keeps landing on the people who might experience it.
To men:
Your job isn’t to tell women they’re safe.
It’s to help create environments where women actually are safe.
Call out your mate.
Interrupt the joke.
Don’t look away.
Don’t minimise.
Don’t protect the reputation of a man at the expense of a woman.
And to the women who feel exhausted by all of this:
You are not dramatic for feeling heavy.
You are not “too sensitive” because these stories affect you.
You don’t have to consume every detail to prove you care.
Sometimes protecting your nervous system is part of protecting yourself.
Log off.
Go outside.
Call your girlfriends.
Laugh.
Dance.
Make dinner.
Be soft.
Live your life.
Because we deserve a world where being a woman doesn’t require constantly calculating the risk of being one.
🙄 Maybe women aren’t “too sensitive.” Maybe we’re exhausted from constantly being reminded what we have to protect ourselves from.
Another woman assaulted. Another woman killed by a partner. Another story that makes women quietly think, that could have been me.
Then we’re expected to live normally, go to work, date, travel, laugh, trust, and carry on like our nervous systems haven’t registered any of it.
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly calculating risk. Who’s behind you. Who you’re getting into a car with. Whether you can safely say no. Whether you should text your friend when you get home. Whether that feeling in your gut is intuition or fear.
I think we need to stop making women feel like they’re failing when the weight of all this gets to them.
You can care about what’s happening in the world without consuming every horrific detail. You can be informed without being consumed. You can protect your nervous system without becoming indifferent.
You can still laugh. Fall in love. Travel. Dance. Build your life. Feel safe. Feel soft. Feel free.
The world is heavy enough. You don’t have to carry all of it alone.
Save this for the days when everything feels like too much, and send it to a woman who might need to hear it 🧡
