A Seat, Not a Test !

There is a difference between speaking freely and being required to explain oneself in order to be acceptable.

My lived reality.

In retrospect, following the sexual harassment I experienced in the workplace in 2018, my right to participate in professional discussions was systematically denied, despite more than 40 documented written requests. These records are on file. My request was not to be given special consideration, but simply to be allowed to participate freely in professional dialogue—an allowance that presumes dignity rather than requiring it to be negotiated.

When 5,000 other women were given access to the seat at the table, why i was denied the same ? 

Years later, I’m told I must have a “hard conversation.” 

For what ? 

To justify that Iam a Human.

And suspect people are not heard.
They are evaluated.

When access to seat and a professional dialogue is conditioned on  hard conversation—so my intentions or morality aren’t “misunderstood”— the system has already decided I do not belong.

If dignity must be proven, it is already lost.

Why must I narrate my life history to be treated with dignity?
Why must I justify my humanity to earn a seat at the table?

Dignity is Stripped when people are asked to prove they belong !

Access to the table should come first. Hard conversations can come later. When the order is reversed, it stops being dialogue and becomes a test of worth—where humanity itself becomes the entry fee. 

When the dominant gaze demands your story, it is not asking to understand—it is asking to verify.

“Because the most effective way to deny people dignity is to make it conditional.”

I often wonder what makes society look at me with suspicion.?
What is it that disqualifies me from trust ? 
Why is there a need for me to Justify my Humanity ?

I see a mother of a sixteen-year-old expressing her sexuality, and society treats it as almost sacred.
And that’s fine—I’m genuinely glad to see how much attitudes have shifted, how separated women are now capable of being respected.

But then I wear a sports outfit and go swimming, and the commentary changes.

My life is reduced to cruel assumptions—
that I “need a man for money,”
that I “need a baby for money,”
that I must be seeking money or validation.

And society seems to believe it is entitled to misunderstand my intentions unless I submit to a “hard conversation” and prove that I am human, that I am worthy of dignity.

How many women among those 5,000 were asked to do the same?
That question alone exposes the bias.

This is the contradiction.

The same society that calls one woman divine feels entitled to doubt another.

For the record—and even this shouldn’t matter—I am a virgin.
I have lived alone for 17 Plus years after my father’s death, supported not by anyone’s protection or pity, but by my skills, discipline, and talent.

Yet still, suspicion follows.

That’s when I understand: this was never about morality or respect.
It was about permission—who is allowed dignity without hard conversation,
and who must keep proving they deserve it. 

Why ?

Is it because I did not enter a labour room and gave child birth?
Is it the absence of motherhood that turns my character into a question mark? 
That is the only difference i see in myself compared to the group of 5000 women (married, divorced and separated).

And that difference?
That’s the bias I’m naming.

What is same for all of us ?
Dignity !

It is Dignity that is going to unite all human beings.

Treat people who are different from you with Dignity.