To the Girls and Women Who’ve Been Objectified:
I see you.
I feel you.
I am you.
To the little girl who learned too soon that, in a twisted and broken world,
her worth was tied to her body — the girl who was brainwashed to believe his wants mattered more than her own …
To the teenage girl who mistook attention for love, the girl who made herself smaller, prettier, quieter, sexier, hoping someone would finally see the soul beneath the (perfectly curated) exterior …
To the woman who believes the lines on her face and the softness of her body diminish her worth, the woman who tenses at a glance or a memory, at being alone with a man on an elevator, in a stairwell, on a sidewalk, in an office …
To the Boys and Men Who’ve Also Been Objectified:
You are not forgotten here.
To the little boy who had no words for what was done to him, who was taught that pain equals weakness, and silence equals strength …
To the teenager who believed his value was in toughness and conquest, that to be a man meant burying pain beneath a mask of stoicism …
To the man who still wears rusted old armor, who walks like a man but feels like a child, who fears vulnerability but wants to be seen and loved …
And To Every Soul Who Was Objectified Before They Had Words to Name It:
I know how deep the grief and shame run.
I know how what happened lingers in the body and mind —
in the way we speak to ourselves,
in the ways we don’t trust,
in how we think we caused it,
in how we still flinch when touched.
Know this:
What was done to you does not define you.
What defines you is what endures beneath it all —
the quiet grit that remains unseen but lives, deep in your bones.
You are not weak.
You are not defined by the moments that hurt you, but by the resilience that was born in their wake.
You are not the labels you gave yourself because of what happened back there.
You are the essence of your own truth.
You are not the sum of what was taken from you.
You are the sum of what you still have — your spirit, your fire, your voice, your unyielding ability to rise … again and again and again.
You are sacred. (Yes, you.)
Your loveableness is innate, undiminished, regardless of the way they tried to reduce you.
It was not your fault.
Period.
It is time.
It’s time to wrap yourself, tight and safe, in your own unshakeable worthiness.
To realize that you are not broken.
No.
You. Are. Healing.
And your healing is a force that helps heal us all.
With love,
Anitra
Anitra Lahiri 