This is not only about America. This is not just being pissed off. This is shame, guilt, pain and perhaps, yes perhaps also anger.

I am a woman. My hips, thighs, breasts, lips, eyes all attest to it. When I walk down any street in America and around the world men whistle, undress me with their eyes, make dirty comments. That would be nothing. We women are used to encounters such as these. What makes me feel most soiled and humiliated, are the unwanted hands on my body, the foreign mouth on my neck, the arousal in their eyes. Those men treat me like an object, a tool for sexual fulfillment.

I am angry at testosterone. I am angry at this drive that we permit men to pursue. I am angry at our capitalist, misogynistic society that reaps us every day of our rights as women.

This is a society where the prostitute, and not the customer, is punished, where eighty year old men decide wherever a twenty year old woman can abort, where girls are abused and never tell anybody because they feel dishonored. We could hide our shapes under layers of cloth like we are encouraged to in certain parts of the world. But that will not change the problem. For when we cover our bodies we are submitting, when we are lightly dressed we are vulgar, for it is always us flirting, for if we get pregnant we were fooling around, if we abort we are killing our child, if we want birth control we are horny.

I could go on saying what I don’t like. But I am an optimist, so I will tell you of my dream instead.

I envision a world where I can walk down the street and feel like I own my body, where my daughters can live without the nightmares of abuse and incest, where people will know that my short skirt is not there to arouse them, but to feel the warm sun, and the fresh breeze on my legs, and butt.