As young women, we are attacked from many fronts. The order of these fronts is not hierarchical, since we are hurt over and over from them parallelly, constantly, all at once. 

The first front we, as women, are attacked from is the conservative force that thrives on seeing us subjugated to the mighty Man. Being nothing more than incubators and vessels to them, criminalization of our bodies seem holy to right-wing white male politicians, whom are thirsty to regulate our bodies and do not think twice about their perfidious anti-abortion laws. Ironically, but not so ironically since it is at the expense of women’s lives, these anti-abortion laws end up killing more babies and far more lives than those the men in power claim they want to save. Conservatives cannot stand the idea of women stepping out of their golden cage, going unimaginable lengths to put us where they think we truly belong. Eventually, it ends up being the inside of a coffin. 

The second front is a tougher nut to crack. When at feminist conferences and events,  panelists are often asked how can we fight against right-wing forces, religion and traditions that work towards the maintaining of subjugation of women. Seldom are we asked how to resist against so-called progressive and liberal movements. 

Under the guise of inclusion and diversity, the left has created a perfect landscape in which affirming oneself as woman is matched with harassment and accusations of transphobia. To be gender critical automatically equates to being an extremist. For saying that biological sex is real and inmutable, and for saying it out and loud, we are removed from social media platforms. For defending lesbian’s rights to not engage in relations with men, we are being called homophobes and transphobes and aggressed at public events. For protecting women’s sex based rights, we are now TERFs. We receive death threats. We’re punched in front of universities. We get taken to court. We lose our jobs, we lose our restrooms, we lose our spaces and we lose ourselves.

Under the fallacies of free choice and ownership of one’s body, the left has helped shape a context in which there is no women’s liberation, either. Opposing conservatism, neoliberalism has shaped the path to keeping us imprisoned to patriarchy. Prostitution is seen as advancing women’s sexual liberation and bodily autonomy. Ultra libertarian societies look the other way and fail to see usage, commodification and trafficking of the female body as enslavement. Paid rape? It’s called sex work now. Please disregard men slapping women in the face, spitting on them, forcing themselves into their throat until we vomit. Look away when women suffer from prolepsis. After all, they chose it. Who cares if African girls get their breasts ironed, bound, when in the West we celebrate the free choice of mutilating our bodies? Who cares about female genital mutilation if we’re happy to consider it as a beautifying bodily practice motivated by personal choice? Who cares about girls and women’s oppression, rooted in sex, if we have a vast array of pronous to identify ourselves with? 

Both conservative and neoliberal forces are detrimental to women’s rights. Though presented differently, both maintain patriarchy and deeply rooted oppression. Both hate women. The other side of the coin also holds an invisible hand on women’s throats. Our role as young women is to reclaim our womanhood, to fully understand our sex-based rights and own the word WOMAN. Reclaim our language. We are neither “womxn”,”cis”, “pregnant people” nor "people with periods".

We are adult human females and our mothers and foremothers have fought too hard, too long for us to be silenced and erased.