What Is Woman There For?

A confronting meditation on presence, power, and the inherited violence that shapes our world

⚠️ This post contains reflections on sexual violence, domestic abuse, and the historical weaponization of the female body. It may be confronting—and it is meant to be. This is not a gentle inquiry, but a necessary one. Because silence has never saved us.

It started with a music video.

The song was beautiful—its lyrics praised women as queens, as empresses, as sacred. But on the screen, a woman danced nearly naked, disconnected from the story. Her body was framed, offered, consumed—without voice or context.

I felt the fracture.

Words said reverence.

The image said possession.

So I asked myself—What is she there for?

And more urgently—What is woman there for?

The question would not leave me.

Because this isn’t just about art.

It’s about life.

It’s about survival.

The Performance of Presence

In music, we see it clearly. Men appear doing—singing, leading, moving the story. Women appear being seen—posed, polished, often voiceless. There for the camera. There for consumption.

But it doesn’t end there.

In politics, how many women are brought in for “representation,” but not for power?

In corporate boardrooms, how often is a woman “there for optics,” not decisions?

In spiritual spaces, how often is she exalted as goddess—while being denied leadership, voice, or bodily autonomy?

Even in love—how often is woman seen as muse, nurturer, prize—but not equal partner?

Even in activism—how often is her presence counted, but her vision dismissed?

So again—what is woman there for?

To decorate?

To affirm?

To seduce?

To soften?

To serve?

To symbolize—but not to lead?

The Most Confronting Layer: War, Power & Violence

Let’s go deeper—into the wound the world doesn’t want to touch.

Throughout history, in times of war, women’s bodies have been claimed like territory. Invading forces have raped, enslaved, and impregnated women as deliberate acts of domination.

From Babylon to Bosnia, Congo to Canada, the taking of women has been used as a strategy—not just to destroy the body, but to break the lineage, to control the future, to mark the conquered.

To desecrate the feminine is to declare power.

To violate the mother is to own the people.

This isn’t chaos.

It’s calculated.

It is ritualized.

And it is still happening.

In modern conflict zones, women are still taken. Trafficked. Used. Silenced. And in every country, in every culture, that same logic echoes—subtler, but just as deadly.

Where It Gets Personal

This is not abstract for me.

Because even beyond war and conquest, the most dangerous place for a woman is often her own home.

A woman is most likely to be killed by someone who says they love her.

Domestic violence is not an outlier. It is epidemic.

It is the air too many women breathe—quietly, painfully, daily.

And this is personal.

It lives in my body.

In my memory.

In the bodies of so many I love.

We don’t need war to see this pattern.

We just need to look at the numbers.

In some countries, being pregnant is one of the leading causes of death for women—not because of biology, but because of male violence. Because pregnancy makes women more vulnerable to abuse, to murder, to control.

Let that sink in.

To carry life can cost a woman her own.

This is not the consequence of love.

This is the shadow of entitlement.

The Historical Root

We didn’t just wake up into this world.

We inherited it.

Colonial systems taught us to sort and dominate—taught us that land, labor, and bodies could be claimed.

Women’s bodies were placed in service to others—made useful, made desirable, made invisible.

And even in the movements that seek to free us, we sometimes replicate the very patterns we long to destroy.

The Gaze That Shapes the World

There is a term—the male gaze. But it’s not just about men. It’s about a way of seeing.

A cultural lens that says:

“You are there for me.” “You exist to validate, decorate, support.” “You are not subject. You are symbol.”

It’s the gaze that places woman in the video—but not in the voiceover.

In the painting—but not holding the brush.

In the relationship—but not at the center of her own life.

It’s the gaze that says: Be visible, but not powerful.

Be beautiful, but not bold.

Be there—but not disruptive.

Refusing to Be Just ‘There’

I no longer want to be there.

Not in someone else’s story.

Not in someone else’s frame.

Not to make a broken world look whole.

I want women to be central—to the vision, the strategy, the voice, the power.

I want us to be authors, not adornments.

Leaders, not lenses.

Not just present—but creating. Initiating. Disrupting. Becoming.

So What Is Woman There For?

That is the wrong question.

Because we are not for anything.

We are of something—of the Earth, of the mystery, of spirit, of life.

We are not here to fulfill someone else’s purpose.

We are not props in a production.

We are not prizes.

We are not territory.

We are origin.

We are force.

We are sovereign.

We are not “there for.”

We are here.

Fully.

Now.

Ourselves.

We Are Not Opposed. We Are One.

Let me be clear: the wound is real, but the war between us is not.

The story that feminism pits women against men is a distortion—one more thread in the fabric of disconnection. Feminism, in its truest form, is the remembering of dignity. For all of us. It is the unlearning of domination—whether over women, over nature, over the self.

It is a return to right relationship.

And there are men and women everywhere already walking this path—fathers, daughters, sons, elders, lovers, friends—each doing the quiet, radical work of restoring balance.

This healing is not about blame.

It is about reunion.

The grief is ours.

The reckoning is ours.

The becoming must be, too.

Together, not as opposites—but as reflections. Not as roles—but as beings. I&I.

An Invitation to All Who See

To my brothers—if you love women, if you revere us, show it not only in your words, but in how you frame us, how you protect us, how you question your power, and how you dismantle the stories that keep us small.

To my sisters—may we never stop asking: Why am I here?

And if the answer doesn’t honor our fullness, our rage, our tenderness, our divinity—may we walk out and build something new.

And to the world-makers—those of us who shape systems, media, culture, families—may we stop placing women in scenes that erase their power.

We are not here to be used.

We are here to be whole.

To be holy.

To be free.

We are here to remember.

And we are not going back.