STOP RAPING ME!

Feminist Manifesto

"Nothing can be used to diminish me " - Audre Lorde

"Our silence will not protect us" -Ibid.

When I graduated from undergrad, I was equipped with feminist theories from renowned feminists and allies such as Audre Lorde, Belle Hooks and Adrienne Rich.  Never was I prepared for the real world - the real world where women's rights issues and deeply entrenched structural injustices clash, targeting vulnerable women like myself because of our identities.

Because of my intersectional identity - as an Asian American, immigrant, Korean-American woman  (also a daughter and sister) - despite all my theoretical underpinnings, I was and became a vulnerable person in the real world to some people and in certain situations.

I learned that because of deeply entrenched structural injustices in the U.S. -  a nation supposedly based on principles of liberty and freedom - I had to fight harder and put up defenses despite my innate naivete because the world is full of ignorant people who will try to tear me down or take advantage of me or just exploit me because I am a woman.

Because of my gender, I suffer every day while my male counterparts don't and when I'm not complaining audibly or speaking out, my reluctant silence speaks volumes - my reluctant silence says EVERYTHING.

Despite my education and my innate strength and years of readings and theoretical preparation, I have to FIGHT to assert myself and to be true to myself and to just be who I am and come to the table AS I AM because of the structural injustices that threaten to undermine who I am and my innate and fundamental sense of integrity and dignity.  

Look at the women's rights issues and debates that are raging at the U.S. Supreme Court even as recently as this past month in 2020.  Look at the Amy Barrett hearings or the subsequent protests that have been engulfing the news due to the fact that women's critical right to access abortion and essential healthcare are not a sine qua non but something that is negotiable - a basic fundamental right that is being threatened and attacked every day.

My moral duty is NOT whether or not I can persuade or dissuade someone to share my views or adhere to a certain ideological perspective based on religion or my personal convictions.  My moral duty is to make this world - a world in the throes of transition and birth pains - a better and safer place for younger generations of women and girls.  My moral duty is to  do something and to struggle against and combat the innate structural injustices and to leave a legacy for the younger generation which it will be proud of - that it will consider myself and others allies and revolutionary social justice fighters and advocates for women's rights and progress in this chaotic and turbulent world

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a picture of me bleeding at the lips again for the 5th time this week