I've seen red.

Sometimes I resent how emotional I get talking about women's issues. When men get under my skin so it burns bright red and I feel myself speak even faster as I get defensive and snap sharply at their retorts. I'm scared to show how much I care, how deeply I'm hurt. I don't want to give them the privilege of watching me squirm so they can sit back comfortably, assuming the high ground, because they remained calm and composed. I feel so ashamed of how deeply I care about my womanhood.

Why am I so scared of my feelings. Because aged 13, the boys would tease us asking 'were we feminists?', mocking us for caring about our very lives. Because we were taught to be embarrassed. I am completely justified in being emotional. I should be more than emotional and I am. I am irate, completely inconsolable about my condition.

I have held my friends hands as they cried about their abuse and held them to sleep after being raped and assaulted. I've felt that pain and endured it too. I've experienced what it is to be a woman in the most degrading ways.

Generations of women in my family have been taught (and forced) to conform to societal pressures. And I'm next. I've been groomed from the day I was labelled a girl.

I'm not even next, they've already got me.

So of course I'm angry and obviously I'm upset. I loath the men that get to sit back and get the privilege to be apathetic and calm about my condition. How dare you shame me for caring. Construct a narrative where I become irrational for understanding what misogyny means for my life.