It was challenging being a feminist in the US. It is much worse living in the Middle East

I've lived in the United Arab Emirates for 8 and a half years now. I've kind of lived in a bubble, though, because I live on a University campus where domestic violence is against the rules, although it is legal in the country. So I don't get to see the worst of things around here, although I have heard stories. But these last few weeks, as I've been horrified by the news coming from the US, I'm also saddened and disgusted by the things I hear in the UAE.

Just this morning, on my Facebook feed, I saw a conversation about wife beating. I've never seen it, but it seems it happens in public frequently. What can I say about that? It makes my already burdened heart feel worse.

A few days ago I learned that Malaysian women usually have Female Genital Mutilation done to them when they are babies. That made me so angry I wanted to scream, and made me wonder how many women have had this done in the world. It turns out that the World Health Organization estimates that somewhere between 100 to 140 million women have it done. Appalled hardly beings to describe how I feel about this.

Then I think about rape and honor killings and child marriage and all the awful, awful things women have to endure in all of Asia and Africa. I am angry and sad and what makes it worse is that repug politicians are trying to take us backwards in the US.


No one would look at me and think "Feminist." I've been a SAHM for most of my life since I had my first daughter, I love clothes and jewelry and cooking, I'm not assertive or anything close. I am a nurturing person by nature, I loved taking care of my kids when they were babies, and really I don't know how I could be more "womanly." But. I first really got an understanding about feminism my first year in college and I became a feminist at the same time I lost my religion. I rejected the Southern Baptist view of the world and my parent's conservative view of the world and the patriarchy all at the same time. But of course, vestiges of all those things clung to me and it's taken years and years of conscious effort to get away from them. I am trying my best to raise my daughters with less to hold them back. I don't want them to have to fight a harmful default background noise like I have to fight every day of life.

I am angry and sad and I wish I could do something for the women of the world.