The shared experience of women is pain.
â˘We share the pain of these awful things called menstrual cramps. Which doesn't sound so bad until you realize the number of women who are literally disabled by them each month.
â˘We endure genital mutilation or genital removal in some cultures.
â˘We endure violent attacks on our person for various reasons - for refusing sex, for dressing the "wrong" way, for simply existing in the wrong place and being a woman. Women are regularly mutilated with knives or acid in many parts of the world.
â˘We bear the pain of growing  a child within us, and then the pain of birthing that child. Many times against our will, as we are told that the child we bear is more important than our own physical health, emotional stability, financial stability, or really anything else. We are told that bearing a child is more important than our own voices and opinions on what happens with our own bodies - even those of us who do not wish to have children and instead wish to have permanent birth control.
â˘We share the pain of sexual assault - whether molestation or outright rape - at some point in many of our lives.
â˘From the time we are born we are formed and terrified by objectivism. As children we're told we have to be _____. We're told what we must like and what to despise. The unwritten implication of this, whether true or not, is that if we aren't _____ enough, we won't be loved.
â˘We start being objectified differently, and more aggressively when we hit puberty. We are told if we don't look _____ enough we will never survive, or thrive, be loved, be respected⌠we'll be seen as plain, as a whore, as a bitchâŚ
â˘We share the pain of a terrified heart beating furiously in our chest as walk briskly away from the potential rapist, knowing that if we run, they'll follow.
â˘We share the traumatic memory that makes us beg that the dude parked on the street doesn't try anything when we walk past.
â˘We share the pain of being told that our opinions, feelings, and thoughts don't matter constantly. That our experience is invalid. Simply for being women. When we are attacked, made uncomfortable, taken advantage of, we are told that we should have been smarter, or that âboys will be boysâ, or that we were âasking for itâ. We see other women experiencing these things and donât speak up for ourselves so that we donât have to experience the same.
â˘To top it off, I should point out again that *an astonishing number of us* experience sexual assault, which leaves physical AND mental scars.
 These are only a few examples. Itâs nowhere near a comprehensive list. I will point out that every single one of these is a real world example. Not one single thing here is overstated. I have observed or experienced every item on this list.
 Feminism is not about dominating the other gender. That is patriarchy's prerogative.
Feminism is about decreasing pain.
Feminism is about healing an entire population of people whose scars are not just physical, but mental.
In most of our time on this planet, our attempts at taking care of the victims of war or other trauma has failed to look beyond the physical trauma. We mend bones and sew wounds shut, but we have not until recently begun to attempt to heal the psyche and ease the deep suffering these events leave on us, like a footstep in clay. The amount of damage to the female population worldwide utterly overwhelms the usability of numbers. Healing this many people is an unprecedented problem to try and tackle.
We bear the pain of a society actively set against us ; not because it means to be, but because it can not begin to understand - because if it did, it would be undone. Is it then any wonder that the shared pain of women is consistently and vocally denied? That we are constantly gaslit, not only by men, but by other women?
 Think. Listen. Decrease world suck. Be prepared to be wrong. Meet shame with compassion, forgiveness, and education, both in yourself and in others.Â
Remember that itâs okay to be wrong, if you take steps towards right.
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