We live in a world where my uterus is more regulated than a gun. Explain to me why that is. Are you confused as to which is capable of causing death and which is capable of creating life?

Think of your mother. Your sister. Your wife. Would you look her in the eye and tell her to give up the rights to her own body? Do you honestly believe that a room full of men should have a more valued opinion than her?

You might call me a feminist. That is true. You might ask why I hate men and what each and every one of them condemned. I would answer that the only hate that true feminists feel is the hatred of oppression. You might listen to the few extremists out there that really do believe that all men are evil. They unintentionally strengthen your case, anyway. But you should know that feminism in its purest form is simply the belief in absolute equality.

I speak to you as a woman who was told to refer to her golf team as the “girls’” and never the “womens’”; to let the boys call theirs the “mens’”. Because being a woman is weird, is wrong; it makes people uncomfortable. But calling fourteen-year-old boys a foot shorter than me “men” gives them the higher status they feel entitled to.

I speak to you as a woman who has been taught to fear for her safety when she gets on an elevator with a man. A woman who clutches her keys a little tighter when she walks to her car after dark. A woman who was forced to take a self-defense class so that she may be one of the “lucky ones.” Teaching boys what rape entails while at the same time teaching girls how to avoid it is counter-productive.

I speak to you as a woman raised to make myself appeal to males. If I wear something nice, do my makeup, my hair, it is assumed that it is for someone else – never for myself. Every magazine cover screams from the shelves, telling me how to please my man, because God forbid I am an individual in a relationship with another individual and that’s all there is to it. I am expected to be a fifties housewife even in today’s “progressive” society.

When I feel pain or anger I am not simply a woman in hysterics. I am a human being that feels everything that comes with the job. I am not two-dimensional. I am dynamic, I am unique, and I am defined only by how I express my confidence and my abilities. Having an opinion does not make me a b****. Enjoying sex does not make me a w****. Saving myself does not make me a prude. My genitals and my gender identity make me female, and my pain, my pride, and my personality make me human. Just. Like. You.