The Parasite We’ve Learned to Live With

 The Parasite We’ve Learned to Live With

They say writing is a form of catharsis—a way to make sense of the world, to untangle thought into language, to speak when silence becomes unbearable. But this blog isn’t about clarity or peace. It is born of what’s happening now—of watching women in Afghanistan be silenced and stripped of their freedoms, of seeing abortion rights clawed away in places that once claimed progress, of enduring the endless chorus telling women to shrink, soften, disappear. This is not creation—it is consequence. A symptom. A by-product. A reaction. It festers not from joy, but from the quiet infection of frustration—frustration that has been feeding off me, burrowed into my nerves, tightening its grip.

Because if I say I'm angry—that I’m seething, raging—it’s not seen as powerful or principled. It’s seen as hysterical. And there it is—the parasite again, feeding off language, off perception. Feminism and hysteria: in the public eye, they cling together as naturally and unconsciously as having turkey at Christmas. A pairing so familiar, we forget to question it. But this isn't tradition—it’s infestation. Feminism has become synonymous with emotional instability because the parasite wants it that way. It thrives when we second-guess ourselves, when we're too afraid to be loud.

I’m infected with this frustration every day I walk into a classroom knowing that over half the children I teach—bright, brilliant, bold—will grow up to be underpaid, underrepresented, and under-valued. There it is again: under. That prefix, that repeated press of the thumb keeping us down. It's no accident. The parasite has latched on to our language, wrapping itself around the words we use to describe ourselves. "Under" isn’t just a descriptor—it’s a position. A positioning. Beneath. Beneath men. Beneath power. Beneath consideration.

And yes, we've tried to fight it. The feminist waves have come, crashing hard, trying to erode the stone foundations of the society that houses this parasite. We've chipped away—brick by brick, speech by speech—but it's not just on the surface. It’s in the wiring, the load-bearing beams. The parasite has dug in deep. And while we’ve been busy painting over the rot, it has continued to multiply.

The infection thrives because we’ve been told this is normal. That what we see and feel—this discomfort, this inequity—is just the way things are. Or worse: the way things should be. Headlines like “risky romp gone wrong” disguise sexual violence as misadventure, while headlines like “Can Angela Merkel stop wearing the same blazer?"” reduce powerful women to fashion choices. The parasite chuckles. Job well done. Even in crisis, even in power, women are meat, decoration, a joke.

Then there are the microdoses of the virus we absorb daily: a social media post about a husband missing his wife’s makeup during lockdown, as though her bare face were an inconvenience. A "harmless" joke about women being too emotional to lead, too hormonal to make rational decisions. A comment passed in the office—“You’re good at this for a girl”—offered like a compliment, but dripping with condescension. Magazine covers praising male CEOs for being “visionary” while applauding female leaders for “juggling it all,” as if competence is expected in men but miraculous in women.

Or when a woman speaks up in a meeting, only to be interrupted—then thanked when her idea is echoed by a man. The parasite smiles. It's done its work. It doesn’t need to scream to survive—it just needs to repeat. Quietly, persistently. Like a whisper behind your ear: This is your place. Be agreeable. Be pretty. Be less.

These aren't isolated incidents—they’re spores in the air. And over time, they find their way into us. Into how we sit in a room. Into how loudly we speak. Into how often we apologise before we’ve even done something wrong. When you hear the whisper enough, you start to believe it. You start to silence yourself before the parasite even has to.

But here's the truth: this isn’t normal. This isn’t okay. This isn’t inevitable. It's a parasite—and parasites can be removed. Not easily. Not without pain. But with clarity, solidarity, and the unflinching belief that our bodies, our words, our worth are not feeding grounds.

It’s time to starve the parasite.

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