They Don’t Get Access to My Service, My Survival, or My Body
- Author Honey Badger
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
I threw away the last of my Navy sweatpants today.
Not because my service didn’t matter.
Not because I’m ashamed of what I did.
But because certain men in my family will never again have access to that part of me.
Access is a privilege.
And they lost it.
When men decide women don’t belong
One of my uncles looked at me and said he couldn’t believe I was in the Navy because I didn’t know what a monkey fist was.
I wasn’t deck department.
I didn’t mess with ropes.
I was Supply.
I worked S-5 and SS-40.
I was a Damage Control Petty Officer.
I was SS-40's Division Training Petty Officer.
I maintained life-saving equipment.
I maintained damage control equipment.
I did spot checks with upper chain of command.
But to him, none of that mattered.
To him, I am just a “woke woman.
”A “DEI woman.”
A woman whose service must be fake because it doesn’t match his narrow, ignorant fantasy of what the Navy looks like.
This is what misogyny sounds like when it puts on a patriotic costume.
The violence of disbelief
When a man dismisses a woman’s service, he’s not just questioning credentials.
He’s saying:
Your competence is suspect
Your pain is exaggerated
Your injuries are negotiable
Your trauma is inconvenient
I hurt my knee in the Navy. I later had surgery to fix what a Lieutenant once said didn’t exist. I have four screws in my knee.
But men like him don’t see that.
They don’t want to.
Because acknowledging it would require respect.
And respect would require reckoning.
When misogyny contaminates memory
I tore up the last photo my mother had of me in my Navy uniform.
That wasn’t self-hatred.
That was grief.
That image had been contaminated by their contempt.
By their jokes.
By their disbelief.
By the way they reduced women officers on TV to “DEI hires.”
Once something sacred is repeatedly violated, the body sometimes says: remove it from reach.
That doesn’t erase my service.
It protects it.
This pattern is not accidental
Another uncle once accused me of stealing money after my mother died.
No proof.
No evidence.
Just accusation.
His wife called me and said, “You are stealing from us.
”When I responded in shock, she told me not to “get an attitude.”
He took her side.
Later, while watching a Hallmark movie with a woman officer on screen, he said: “She must be a DEI hire.”
Same script.
Different day.
These men are not misunderstood.
They are consistent.
Why my body is done
I live in a house right now where my body is on constant alert.
My knee starts hurting before anyone even gets up.
My nervous system reacts to anticipation alone.
Lavender doesn’t fix that.
Magnesium doesn’t fix that.
Pain meds don’t fix that.
Because you cannot regulate inside an unsafe environment.
My body is not broken.
It is responding accurately.
And I will leave this house before I allow myself to be slowly dismantled by men who show no respect for my humanity, my service, or my survival.
I do not need sexist men in my life
I am an independent woman.
I manage my own medications.
I take myself to my own medical appointments.
I live with chronic pain and autoimmune disease — and I take responsibility for myself every day.
I do not need grown men outsourcing adulthood to women and calling it “care.”
I do not need men who believe women only belong if we stay quiet, grateful, and small.
And I do not need relatives who think blood entitles them to access.
Final truth
I do not owe men like this:
My service story
My trauma
My patience
My body
My calm
My silence
They do not get access.
Not now.
Not ever again.
This is not bitterness. This is boundary.
— Author Honey Badger
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