The list is long.
The list is constant.
And the list is exhausting.

We are taught how to protect ourselves before we are ever taught why we need protection.

No one sits us down and explains who these rules are really for.
No one clearly says who we are supposed to fear.
Yet millions of women silently follow these instructions every day, adjusting their lives, their voices, their clothing, and their movements to stay safe.

So the real question becomes:
Who are we protecting ourselves from?
Who are millions of silent women protecting themselves from?

Women don’t want to live in survival mode.
We want to calm our nervous systems.
We want to walk freely without scanning every room.
We want to drink without fear.
We want to exist without calculating risk.

Instead of teaching girls how to hide, shrink, and stay alert, we should be teaching boys from an early age to keep their hands to themselves — to respect boundaries — to understand consent.
So that when they grow up, women don’t have to disappear when they enter the room.

It is exhausting to carry both fear and responsibility.
Exhausting to be told it is our job to prevent harm.
Exhausting to live as if danger is always nearby.

It is disturbing how selective faith becomes a curtain instead of a mirror.
How quickly the book (bible) is opened to quiet the room, instead of voices being raised to confront what is wrong.
How easily a dream of “chosen leaders” is trusted, while the bruises, the silence, and the breaking of women are left unseen — as if heaven blinked and missed the blood on the floor.
We are told God speaks in visions, yet somehow never warns of the wolves already inside the church walls or communities.
The God I met as a child was a God of light, not fog — a God of truth, not riddles.
So when a figure appears in a dream, I must ask: was it Jesus… or was it lack of common sense knocking, or some figure disguised as holiness?

Women do not want more rules.
We want safer systems.
We want accountability.

Sincerely,
A concerned woman.