I attended the Contemporary Women’s Issues Conference in England in November 2019. It was led by Diane Balser (the International Liberation Reference Person for Women) who is fiercely and powerfully determined to keep us all looking at sexism and sexual exploitation. Under the influence of neo-liberalism politics, many of us have settled for “comfort.” However, there is still much to discharge! It is still painful and unbearable. We need to keep discharging on all the places where we as girls had to tolerate the harshness of sexism, sexual exploitation, and male domination, and the ways it ruined our lives.


Sexism intersects with other oppressions in various ways. For example, some women are enforced into servitude and are expected to reproduce. Women experiencing genocide oppression may be prevented from reproducing. Owning-class women may be enslaved to one man. Poor, working-class, and Global Majority women may be made available for anyone to exploit. Middle-class women may appear to be happy with their so-called privileges, but the oppression is there in subtle forms. However, the experience of male domination unites all females the world over. We all have this to face and recover from. We can find unity and solidarity with other women. It was important to me to be with my raised-poor sisters in a support group in which we tried to face the harshness we have experienced as female babies, girls, female teenagers, and women.


I have been attending these workshops for many years and have always dreaded the thought of going. I realized that this shouldn’t be surprising as they bring up lots of misery and depression and a reminder that my life was utterly miserable as a young girl experiencing sexual exploitation and male domination. We all have our own experiences of the oppression. I was raised poor and working class and was available to be targeted by anyone—male relatives, strangers—never feeling that I was worth anything and that I only existed for others’ satisfaction. I’ve realized that I have not been able to live my life truly for myself. 


I feel more hopeful since the workshop after some big discharge. However, the journey out feels daunting, and I need all my sisters to do this together. What can we face and tell each other? Where are we compromising? Where have we assimilated into being a “proper woman”? Who is the “right kind of woman”? I look forward to continuing to look at these vital issues and to assisting younger women to look at all this before they get as old as I am.