If you are a woman, you must have felt acutely many times that you did not exist. You ask a question and they answer the man standing next to you. You cease to exist when they tell you what you feel or explain things you know better than them, without completely listening to what you have to say. You also disappear when it turns out that the meaning of your existence is to make men's lives run harmoniously and smoothly, in a way that is somewhat imperceptible. And they dare to decide about us, our bodies and lives. We inherit husband's as if the person we used to be disappears. Disappearing is much more traumatic when someone decides to use you to meet their sexual needs and won't even cross their minds to ask if you really want that too. Because what would it matter? Why would your "no", your resistance or freezing in terror mean anything in view of the important fact that a man, that is a man, needs something from you? The same is of course the case when you become pregnant. It turns out then that your plans and needs are no longer taken into account by anyone. Let's be honest: your life and health only matter insofar as it will be useful to the right life that is just beginning to grow in you. Of course, this systematic disappearance of us does not mean that we completely cease to exist. We just exist for them. We are not to count only on them. A mansplainer would not prefer to talk to the wall! He needs you to stand there, listen and smile in awe. Your complete disappearance would be highly irritating, the rapist would not be satisfied with an inflatable doll, and without your body the fetus would never become a baby.
2018 - ongoing
