Danielle Campoamor

Our friendship was over long before that night I hurt her feelings because she hurt mine. Our commonalities were evaporating, we didn’t see one another as often, and I’m fairly certain we didn’t like one another anymore. While growing up, we grew apart — but instead of seeing that natural division as a normal, common and positive part of adulthood, we grew scared and self-conscious and defensive. What does this mean about us, as women? Why can’t we continue to love one another? Are we bad friends? Are we bad people?

There are so many reasons why I and countless other women walking down countless sidewalks aren’t smiling. Our rights are still being violated, still being stripped from us, and still being fed to presidential candidates as topics for the latest debate. We’re against fighting gender inequality, sexism, racism, homo- and transphobia, income inequality, gender stereotypes, domestic abuse, and the constant threat of rape.

[CN: misogynistic online harassment; death threats; mentions of rape and child abuse] You shouldn't have to go to a great imaginative effort to humanize a woman to treat her like a human being. Spoiler alert — she's already a human being without you knowing her or caring for her or seeing her as a long-lost relative or even agreeing with her.

I was questioned about my sexual past — a past filled with consensual partners and an affinity for whiskey — and quickly deemed to be an imperfect victim, a deviant who was sexually active far too often and for far too long to ever conceivably tell a man no.

There were pills for the pain, but there was nothing that could help me forget that my boyfriend didn’t truly care about me. I couldn’t swallow a drug and turn my partner into someone who not only wanted to take my pain away, but believed that I was in pain at all. There wasn’t a prescription a doctor could write that would make my despair believable. There wasn’t a cure for my boyfriend’s apathy.

The first time I felt like I had lost control of my body was over six years ago, when I found out I was pregnant. Biology and time and every facet of my human existence seemed to be working against me. I was afraid and ashamed, because I could have been smarter and more accurate with my birth control and I wasn’t too young or too dumb. I knew better. But, thankfully, there was something I could do about it.