The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Darker Objects by Christine E. Ray and Friends

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content warning for rape and abortion

The Color of Our Rights (excerpt)

A Reproductive Rights Collaboration
with Jack Neece, Erin L. King, Megha Sood, Jamie Lynn
Martin, Candice Louisa Daquin, Susan M. Conway, Sarah
Doughty, Jesica Nodarse, Saide Harb-Ranero, Quatrina
Hosain, Rachael Z. Ikins, and Robert Wertzler

Raised in a green, faraway land where
women lack power over our bodies,
all while stepping on fertile soils,
left to be watered by the hand of an oppressor.
No voiced cries, no souls to heal anymore;
just vacant shells left behind to pick up the pieces of what was
once called a woman.
No resistance to stop the invasion either —
just compliance to carry appointed commands.
A woman should always know her place in the world, His world.
A Man’s world.
Makes it easier to endure.
Problem solved, right? So I thought.
As a teen, I witnessed so many injustices:
sex, unprotected by foolish teenagers.
Rape, hushed just so a community never faced shame brought
in without consent.
Victims blamed, the easiest outcome to digest.
The solution, girls forced to marry their rapist, only to restore
honor to the family…
Problem solved, right? So I was told.
Eight dollars and fifty cents, the American dollar equivalent of a
problem solved.
A pill handed to girls by desperate mothers in the family
bathroom.
No doctor. No care. No precautions.
“Just go to sleep. It will go away overnight.”
That overnight hell comes and goes, leaving scars, with no elixir
to kill the pain of a physical and emotional trauma
of waking up in a puddle of her own crimson blood.
But that’s okay. It’s never talked about again. It’s over.
Problem solved, right? So I heard.
But now I’m here.
A red, white, and blue flag held high above my head, giving me a
sense of protection.
Of ‘I am home.’
A humongous sign, “The land of the free,” brought tears to my
eyes while walking through Customs.
“Welcome to the United States of America, Miss,”
he told me as he handed me the passport that carried so much
pain I wanted to forget.
I was free. I am free.
My body is safe now.
I am my own woman.
Problem solved, right? So I hoped.
But where the hell am I?
Am I in a country where rights are protected,
where voices are heard,
Where strength and free will is celebrated?
Or am I in a third-world country again?
I woke up confused that morning.
With two girls I needed to get ready for school.
Two girls I had been lying to, apparently.
Telling them they have rights.
That they’re strong.
That they are lucky they were born here and not overseas.
Problem solved, right? Or so I thought.
I woke up confused that morning.
Reading a law that condemns a rape victim to carry her abuser’s
child.
Forcing women to resort to unsafe solutions, any means in order
to take away a pain that they didn’t deserve.
I woke up confused that morning.
Wondering, why was a law, regarding a woman’s body, made by
misogynistic Men?
Someone, please, wake me from this nightmare, calm my heart,
and assure me that this is not a world my daughters are being
raised in.
What’s the solution? I wonder.