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The Next Wave: Feminism in the 21st Century, Part III

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I am watching If These Walls Could Talk (I've seen it before, but I just bought a copy and am watching it for the first time in a few years), and I am having a very strong reaction to it, unlike I have in the past.

When I first saw it, I responded emotionally, but the conclusion that I came to in the end was that we (women) absolutely deserve the RIGHT to an abortion.

Tonight, I started crying so hard (on the third story, the one I can most relate to, mostly because of her age) that it hurt. I was lying on my living room floor sobbing so hard I thought I was going to vomit...

Add to this the reading I have been doing lately, and I am having a really hard time figuring out how I feel.

In my tear-stained haze, this is the best I can do to describe how I am thinking right now... I am so angry.

I am so fucking angry that any woman in the history of the world has had to choose to have an abortion.


I am so fucking angry that I have been told my entire life that I am not good enough, that my body is nothing but a source of shame and filth, something that must be hidden and deodorized and kept discreet and "fresh"...

I am so fucking angry that when I was pregnant with my daughter, I hid it every day for 8 months because I didn't want to hear the inevitable bullshit that I would have from other people as a 22-year old unwed mother-to-be.

I am so fucking angry that I felt the need to even consider having an abortion when I found out that I was pregnant because I didn't think that the society I live in would accept me if I had a baby while I was still in college.

I am so fucking angry that I felt the need to run from my car to Hollywood Video last night because I have to live in fear every single day and night that I will be raped simply because I am a woman.

I am so fucking angry that we women allow this to continue.

I am not angry that men let it continue. I am angry that they do not fully understand, but it is not for them to give me power. My power comes from me. My power comes from the generations upon generations upon generations of women who have come before me, and from the generations to come after I am gone.

Our power should come from a feeling of community. Women standing together shoulder to shoulder, reclaiming the respect and dignity that we deserve.

We vowed to "take back the night" but we never took a good long look at the big picture. We need to take back our lives. We need to take back what it means to be a woman, and stop letting society and government and corporations tell us what it means to be a woman, how to be a woman, how to do it right...

I am so fucking angry, so angry...

What I don't understand is, why doesn't everyone care? Sometimes it feels like... why doesn't anyone care?

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Katherine Brengle is a freelance writer and activist.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

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