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MJ

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I am an American and Italian dual citizen and have lived my adult life as a “trailing spouse” – a wife who has supported my husband’s career internationally while not being awarded work or study visas of my own. Typically, I’ve held “spouse” or “visitor” visas. This situation has made me financially and legally (immigration wise, at risk of deportation upon separation or divorce) dependent. We have three children. He is abusive in every sense of the word – emotionally, sexually, financially (I have no idea what earnings or savings he holds), and physically, culminating in an incident in 2021 in which he drank 3/4 a bottle of whiskey and woke me from a dead sleep choking me to the point of a whiplash and vertebrae injury. I saw a doctor two days later and carefully reported the incident but could not file a police report, as then his employment, our family of five’s only source of income whilst I lacked work permissions, was at risk. Even in explaining the precariousness of my situation, I was asked to return two hours later for “exam and x-ray results”… wherein I was ambushed by the police. I was then referred to a social service agent who asked, first question “What is your plan to for financial independence or to return to your home country?” Despite holding a US Bachelors and years of unpaid NPO experience, I was told in the absence of local language fluency no one could assist me with employment. And I had no one to return “home” to and three children I’d be leaving behind, due to the Hague Convention (I would require my abuser’s permission to have them leave their country of domicile). I couldn’t stay, I couldn’t go. And to add insult to injury… again and again… I was phoned by KESB and informed that should the children witness further abuse, I would lose custody as at this juncture I was complicit as I did not leave the relationship. I am still in this position to this day. I have been married 23 years and am in a foreign country with three children. I’ve made contact with countless attorneys, women’s aid groups, embassies, and advocates, literally all of them are optics and all of them unable to assist. And the remote work option that seemed so promising during the pandemic has all but disappeared. I’m here, financially dependent, abused, and in a system that does not recognise unpaid caregivers. We are simply prisoners.

Emma

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I’m a medical student on a paediatrics placement. My group of 4 was being taught in Paediatric Assessment, a kind of A&E. A couple had been kind enough to let us visit and examine their son. We discussed his development, and why he was in hospital, and I comforted his anxious older sister whilst we examined him. We left them, and my male colleague said “mum was hot”. ‘Mum’ had been so kind to us to enable our learning, was shattered from looking after a baby in respiratory distress, and had a toddler. She did not need to be objectified. It made me feel sick to think this is how my colleague thinks about his patients.

Karin

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I am working hard in raising my boys to be feminists. My six year old is so proud of his colorfull clothes (boys clothes in Sweden are mostley black or navy blue, so I make an effort go find “happier” clothes) and the fact his best friend thinks he looks like a girl. (Not clothes but his face/body, the friend is a girl if it matters for the story) It breaks my heart that he one day might take “looking like a girl” as an insult. Already his friends opinions about what girls are like and boys are like, weighs more then mums “girls and boys are the same but people are different”-attitude. I’m afraid that I can’t impact them enough and I will loose respect for them as adults.

Michael

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As a father, I have struggled with protecting my children from sexism. When my daughter was a newborn (until the age of 2) I had trouble convincing my colleagues, friends, and family, that it did not matter what color her clothes was. She was a baby and did not care what she wore. But they all insisted she needed to wear “pretty dresses.” I work hard to find “dolls” for my daughter that did not promote the sexuality of the female body– and I have worked equally hard to convince my son that his super hero figures are “dolls” as well. But what I have found particularly troubling was that the people who seemed fine with allowing my baby daughter to wear “boy” clothes (or whatever it was) when she was a baby, were not OK when I wanted my baby son to wear those same clothes. This includes my wife.