My existence contradicts your day
My existence contradicts your day – as this day is a celebration of a feminism that originates from a european fight against a european patriarchy wanting access to the same european privileges in a european society neglecting that these privileges are built on the suppressions and exploitation of bodies like mine and that the culture forming this fight is not my culture and your culture safeguard, that bodies like mine can never fully enter your sphere.
My existence contradicts your day – as feminism campaigns for reproductive rights no matter sexual orientation, class or family structure – focusing on access to contraceptives and legal abortions and lgbtq+ rights ignoring that family creation through adoption, surrogacy and donor-conceivement is made possible by oppressing bodies like mine and my peers’ reproductive rights using money to create structures to systematically exploit a fertility outside the global West and advocating for one white minority group rights by oppressing brown women across the global south.
My existence contradicts your day- as feminism hails and give prices to the strong independent white woman making career pushing white men aside in a stive to the top forgetting the support and aid given by underpaid bodies like mine – us who clean you office, who brews your coffee, who serves your lunches, who babysits your children, who delivers your suppers – pushing no man aside in our striving just to survive.
My existence contradicts your day – as the freedom to dress only applies to your bodies and not my body – my body wear clothes you have spun a tale with strands of oppression and violence – so my scarf, my coat, my skirt, my tattoos are parts of a suit, that keeps me silenced, suppressed and without possibility to be heard. My will is not mine as I do not know what is best for me and your effort to save me from oppression yanks me into your oppression of how to read my signs. Even if I stood naked in front of you that would not change your narrative.
My existence contradicts your day – as your day is feeding from a systematic exploitation of people with my body. As you want the little we have but you don’t share the abundance you have. You want our old recipes, our health practices, our spirituality, our clothings, our fertility, our land, our services, our images, our spices, our beaches, our ressources, our labour, our traditions, our colors. But you don’t want us – our annoying existence and loud bodies screaming for justice.
My existence contradicts your day – as all the measurements of when a woman is free, strong, independent and a true feminist is molded by white feminism making yet another impossible format for my body to fill. Ensuring people with my body walk from one kind of oppression to another kind, from one defeat to another. With the right amount of gratitude of course, because you have offered us these impossible standards for us to never achieve, introducing just another fight for us to never master nor be worthy of obtaining.
My existence contradicts your day – as the foundation of your day is based in white academics who actively constructed the system designed to keep you in power no matter the gender. A system founding a belief rooted so deeply that when you dig deep into your souls you will find a notion- an ecco wrapped in shame never to be spoken, of you being a tad better when it comes to what is right and what is wrong, to judge whose god is more oppressive, whose men are more violent, whose languages are too loud, whose food smells too much, whose bodies takes too much space, whose laws are to be obeyed, whose actions are more criminal.
My existence contradicts your day – as words like intersectionality, mental health, selfcare are just another way raising the wall, making my fight even harder as all these words weaponize the resistance of opening up for people with my body, because it is complex, hard, difficult for your feminism that people with my body it is basically just about trying to make a daily life without awakening too many traumas that in the end kills us way too early.
My existence contradicts your day – as my truth hurts the white female body who cries and cries and cries in pain over my trauma, over my exploitation, over my survival. And the wailing fills this room, silencing my words as revisiting them is too uncomfortable for the white female body. And even now, when you check in with your body you dismiss it by nervous laughter, light contempt, academic criticism and a tale about the topic being more complex than what I tell you right now in this moment.
My existence contradicts your day – as the many speeches and many slogans on this day uses my body as the poster child for the diversity of your fight – with speeches as the proof of your will to be solidaric where in reality you do not compensate for underpayment, you do not distribute power, you do not open doors to your privileges as this fight is only your fight and is a privileged fight – it is not my fight as my oppression partly stems from you and your fight for me last only this one day.
My existence contradicts your day – as even these words repeatedly circles around the same fundament, that modernity is designed for the few and not the many and we stand on land that has been plundered, raped and left violeted for generations to come with not even the basic ressouces to survive. You have taken our children, our clean water, our fertile land, our culture and still you stand up and basically on this day you speak about a fight for the rights to continue the same vicious circles and practices.
My existence contradicts your day – as my day everyday is double up on your day. As my oppression and my fight is tenfold of yours and sometimes I wonder if you could last in my body or any other women of colors body for more than one day and on this day – your day – I have yet again lended you my body and voice hoping you get a glimpse of what is means to be my body – every day and that this day – your day in Danish a fight day – is our day everyday tenfold.
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the migrant people in the global west living in diaspora on foreign land
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the indigenous people living in diaspora on own land
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the civil people caught in a fight that is not theirs and killed for politics, they have not voted for
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the brave people demonstrating for liberty knowing death comes to them no matter what
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the wandering people whose ancestral trails are hindered by borders, they have not defined themselves
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the minority people suppressed by the greed of the majority while being accused of trying to survive on a wealth made possible by their ancestors’ sacrifices
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the non-normative and non-conformative people trying to be an entity they define themselves
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the immigrant people in the global west hindered to settle, trying to find their peace and raise their kids
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the enslaved people – enslaved by history, capitalism and systems
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the forgotten tribal people erased by the colonial power’s hunger for land, resources and free labour
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the innocent people imprisoned by a system where justice is a privilege created to keep selected bodies suppressed
I braid and sacrifice my hair in solidarity with all the challenged people unable to fit within the definitions of being sane, healthy, productive and useful citizens
Performative reading created to Hylliebiblioteket/Kulturhyllan, performed the 6th of March 2026
Performer, performance text and koncept: Yong Sun Gullach
Photos: Surrah Al-Himidy