Female Rage

It simmers, the rage—a languishing of fear, despair, anger. Even at our happiest, we can’t let our guard down—and even if we do everything right, there’s no such thing as true peace of mind. There will always be a what-if that threatens like the Sword of Damocles, simply because the world is what it is, and more than half of us so happen to exist as girls and women.

Even more appalling details have been made public regarding Jane Doe’s case. Most recently: a discovery that campus police sanitized her statement. Enraging, but unfortunately, hardly surprising. The devaluation of women’s and survivors’ stories isn’t new—but the devolution of language for sharing these accounts is. I know algospeak (“grape,” for example) exists to help avoid social platform and Internet censorship, but at its core, is a digital form of Newspeak. Words are stripped of meaning and in turn, their impact is diminished. It’s easier to scroll away from grape.

But it’s braver to read, write, share, vote. Language is critical; we tell our stories in order to live. Sexual violence isn’t just a symptom of the patriarchy: It’s absolutely political.

Reading: The Wall by Marlen Haushofer + Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur + Minor Detail by Adania Shibli / Wearing: Andrea Maack Coven + Bottega Veneta Sant’Andrea Croc Frame Bag

Reading: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood + I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou / Wearing: Marissa Zappas Queen Nzinga

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