When People Say “Woman Is a Feeling,” Something Important Disappears We know that we were not born to give men feelings. We were made for so much mor
When People Say “Woman Is a Feeling,” Something Important Disappears
We know that we were not born to give men feelings. We were made for so much more.
Some repeat the phrase softly, like it’s gentle.
Some repeat it fiercely, like it’s progressive.
But to many of us, it doesn’t feel liberating.
It feels erasing, silencing, and familiar.
Because women don’t experience oppression because of a privately felt emotion.
Women are targeted because of real conditions — lived in real bodies — inside real systems that shape every part of our lives.
Oppression Isn’t a Mood. It’s Material.
Women are not harmed because someone feels feminine. We are not harmed because we may feel feminine.
Women are harmed because society responds to our bodies and our lives in specific, patterned ways across centuries.
Women face:
bodies capable of pregnancy being controlled or punished
sexual objectification treated as normal even from our girlhood years
endless expectations of caregiving
pay inequity that accumulates over time
domestic and sexual violence with little to no provisions to escape, heal, or get justice.
cultural roles enforced, re-invented, refashioned, and re-tooled again and again
None of that is a feeling.
Those are deeply embedded systems.
Those are laws.
Those are punishments, biases, and dangers.
They were built.
They were maintained.
They have consequences.
And when someone says, “woman is a feeling,” the message shifts into something deeply manipulative:
If you don’t prioritize my feeling over your reality, you are the problem.
Suddenly, the focus moves away from power, safety, and reality — and toward policing language and emotions.
Convenient. Predictable. Very archaic.
This Isn’t New. Patriarchy Has Always Turned Women Into Fantasy.
This is the same mindset that says:
OR….You could just respect women.
Woman is softness.
Woman is comfort.
Woman is service.
Woman is beauty.
Woman is inspiration.
She is what she makes me feel.
To some, women exist as atmosphere.
A moment. A mood. A costume.
This is the man who wants to experience a woman briefly — then discard her.
Sometimes discard her safety.
Sometimes discard her body where no one can ever find her again.
Sometimes discard her existence.
He wants access. Not responsibility.
He wants services. Not humanity.
And society has rewarded that thinking for centuries.
People Enjoy Talking About How Women Were “Seen” — But Rarely Care What Happened To Us
Here’s the part that stings:
Many people who yell about how women were perceived in history.
Property. Temptress. Madonna. Witch. Mother. Problem. Beast. Slur.
But they rarely ask:
They don’t appear to go looking into the fascinating lives and histories of women.
They don’t appear study women with great depth beyond what they looked like or how they entertained.
They don’t seem collectively mourn women.
Because that is not what is shared. In debates and conversations our abusive and violent histories become weapons against us. The people who survive the fault lines and openings hell in the first place. Women are used as symbols for arguments — not as human beings who lived and died under those systems. And God help the children.
It’s debate. Theory. Posturing.
Women- no flash just making the world spin- as people and contributors to the advancement of society do not seem to fascinate these type.
“Even My Childhood Toys Got More Humanity Than This”
Here’s what I keep thinking:
I wouldn’t describe my pets as “just feelings.” Watch the comment section of pet videos. People recognize pets have their own feelings and rights.
I remember a viral video online where the adorable chihuahua was on his hind legs begging because human owner had to leave.
The comment section was filled with people, strangers advocating the little guy.
“Put him in your pocketbook and take him to work with you.”
“Tell your job you are his support human”.
The internet is filled with content where people relate to animals they only saw seconds ago and suddenly they are deeply invested. My own mother has been known to mourn with others when a “famous” animal passes away. Now I gotta hear about his entire history and what made him special. Like he was kin. (I love animals too, I’m just saying)
As a child, my dolls and stuffed animals had names. They had stories. If I thought I hurt them- dropped them or rolled over onto them in the middle of the night-I apologized sincerely.
They weren’t feelings. They were family.
So how dare anyone give women less dignity than a child gives a toy?
Reality Shows Up Fast in Women’s Lives
Identity talk disappears the moment I walk into a doctor’s office.
Suddenly I am expected to:
- track cycles
account for pregnancies
discuss sexual history
explain pain -explain pain -explain pain -explain pain -explain pain- explain pain
prove it isn’t “in my head” - convince medical staff to listen to me so that me and my unborn child will not die
- endure a cervical biopsy that I was told would be “mild discomfort” but actually feels like being shot with a high powered laser beam (Why lie?)
- spell and explain to medical staff what certain conditions are because women’s health just isn’t taken seriously so even medical staff that works in women’s health centers may not know about seemingly basic 101 conditions.
- endure 10-15 years of being told that nothing is wrong with you when something serious definitely is for the exact same reason.
- take medications and use everyday products that were never properly tested on my female body and could be hazardous to my health. But the moment a medication causes a male too many problems it gets discontinued.
- Be cool with the fact that a major AI platform is disrobing women and children without their consent on a popular social media application.
Expected to accept and endure one injustice after another.
The world demands I live the consequences — not the costume. Because even the present day pain and discomfort of how every woman’s female pelvic issues are treated comes from the torture of girls and women enslaved in the United States.
Usual female human being things.
Not the fantasy.
The full weight.
So no, I don’t hear liberation when I hear:
“Woman is a feeling.”
I hear another attempt to define women from the outside, while ignoring what harms us.
I hear a refusal to confront the bone-deep truth of what women and girls around this entire globe live.
I hear the same worn through, tired, and ragged impulse to define us from the outside based on how we made others feel going back to our girlhood days.
I hear another way of saying:
You exist for what I feel — not for who you are.
And I’m so done with that familiar sound of rattling chains and shackles on innocent women and children. Always yelling, “Mine!” Always connected to men somehow. Sometimes held there by other women.
Women are not moods.
We are not muses.
We are not projections.
We are not historical decorations for someone else’s narrative.
We are human beings — embodied, endangered, brilliant, mesmerizing, miraculous, remembering — and the world owes us the dignity of taking our reality seriously. At the very least.
Naming that truth isn’t cruelty.
It’s clarity.
It’s protection.
It’s finally stepping out of the role others wrote for us — and telling the truth.