As someone forced into a life I never chose, I am appalled that women, who are more empowered than ever, are choosing a life without choices – putting themselves in a prison of their own making.
Brides shouldn’t think about duties right before their wedding day. But when I entered into an arranged marriage with a 28-year-old stranger, I was still just a 17-year-old girl who loved her British private school, books and cricket. As such, I found myself thinking about a recent creative writing assignment: I had written a story about a young woman who wore jewelry shaped like snakes. I wrote that they suddenly came to life and crawled up his throat, strangling him.
This story would be a dark omen of the next 12 years of my life.
Shortly after our ceremony in the Middle East, my new husband and I moved to a suburb in Canada. I was excited about the North American education he had promised me – maybe, I thought, I could even become a doctor. But everything changed when I unexpectedly became pregnant. I could no longer go to school, and over time, in harmful and subtle ways, I lost more and more of my freedoms: I couldn’t leave the house, have my own money, or own a phone. portable. When I expressed my concerns about my marriage, I was told that it was a woman’s destiny, the will of our god. Little by little, my dreams were poisoned and I was consumed by the conviction that if I didn’t serve my husband – ironing his shirts, making his lunch, washing the dishes – I would be a failure as a wife and mother.
It didn’t take long for his insults to turn into physical blows. He grabbed my wrist and pushed me; he would slap me; he pulled me by my hair and spat in my face. One day he punched a hole in the wall next to my head and said, “Next time it’ll be you.” » On another occasion, he took a knife and swore to kill me, then himself. At one point, I grabbed a razor blade in the shower and considered cutting myself, only stopping when I heard my baby crying. And through it all, I became certain that somehow my misfortune was My mistake.
So trust me when I say I know what it’s like to live like women don’t have rights. In my marriage – my “family” – I was effectively deprived of my freedoms.
So imagine my surprise when I learned of the existence of social media phenomenon of “tradwives”: influencers in pretty dresses, happily giving up their rights to serve their husbands. These women romanticize a golden age of America’s past that never really existed: an imaginary time when the husband was the breadwinner and breadwinner, and the wife was the obedient housewife and mother of the children …as is natural, as God apparently intended.
As someone who has been forced to live a life I never chose, I am appalled that women, who are more empowered than ever, are effectively choosing a life without choices – putting themselves in a prison they have themselves created.
Their support — along with that of men who fetishize the so-called “traditions” that promise to make America “great again” — also helped bring Donald Trump back to the White House. The president-elect and his vice president JD Vance have both presented themselves as champions of “family values” – a catch-all justification based on the toxic assumption that a woman’s place is in the home.
In my marriage – my “family” – I was effectively deprived of my freedoms. …The last thing we want is to be taken back to the past and restart the battles we have already fought and won.
“If your worldview tells you that it is bad for women to become mothers, but it is liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at school. The New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” Vance said in 2022. Linking “family values” to nationalism is also at the heart of Project 2025the conservative handbook that asserts that “families consisting of a married mother, father, and their children constitute the foundation of a well-ordered nation and a healthy society.”
I saw the world these people want, where the man is the provider, masculinity is muscular, and power lies in control. It’s a world where women are submissive and in need of protection – in Trump’s words, “whether women like it or not” – and where feminism poses a threat to the family unit. It’s a world that’s slowly pushing women back.
I know firsthand what it is like when power turns to violence. I know what it’s like to be watched and have to walk on eggshells so as not to hurt a man’s feelings. I live in Canada, where abortion is completely legal and publicly funded, but I also know what it’s like to feel like you can’t get one. My daughters are the best thing that ever happened to me, but having them so young could have threatened my health; Yet abortion never seemed like an option to me due to religious shame and community pressures. But I want my daughters to have the freedom to decide if they ever find themselves in a similar situation.
I live in Canada, where abortion is completely legal and publicly funded, but I also know what it’s like to feel like you can’t get one.
The votes hadn’t even been fully counted in Pennsylvania when Nick Fuentes, a cartoonish white supremacist villain with a long history of hate speech, celebrated Trump’s victory over X by perverting an iconic feminist mantra. “Your body, my choice. Forever,” he posted. Perhaps worse, tens of thousands of people quickly shared or liked his post, quick to mock any criticism: Relax, can’t you be joking? But it’s not a joke.
Among those happy with Trump’s victory was a high-ranking member of the Taliban – the terrorist group that has virtually erased the voices and rights of Afghan women– stating that “Americans are not ready to entrust the leadership of their great country to a woman.”
I lived in the world these people want. You don’t want it.
But I can also tell you that Fuentes is wrong when he says it’s forever. When you’re trapped in this world, disenfranchised, you can feel like you’re being swallowed up by despair. But you find a way.
I studied in my room every night to finish high school. After having my second daughter, I earned an undergraduate degree, then a master’s degree in economics, graduated at the top of my class, and worked for years at one of the largest banks of Canada. Then inspired to help others on their own healing journey And Informed by my own experiences, I completely changed path to pursue my childhood dream: to become a doctor at one of the best medical schools in the world.
Today, through my work in psychiatry, I know that we don’t really emerge from trauma, we move forward with it – and that our capacity to heal is even greater and more powerful than the worst things that happen to us. Women understand this better than anyone, because we are always moving forward. The last thing we want is to be taken back to the past and restart the battles we have already fought and won.
I fought hard in my own life to make sure I could make my own choices, and so that my daughters could do the same. It’s about choosing, it’s like breathing. We must not let this be suppressed by those who would take us back.