Author’s Note: Final Essay on Breaking the Authoritarian-Narcissistic Dynamic

Today, I had expected to publish an essay on Satyagraha and the “second sex”—how a “day off” in Iceland and sex refusal in Liberia became the tools that allowed women to step out of the authoritarian-narcissistic dynamic between the sexes. My intention was to illustrate how refusal was transformed into witnessing and secular revelation, thereby contributing to significant reforms in one state and playing a role in stopping a bloody civil war in the other.

However, what began as a standard-length essay is now growing into a much longer piece. As the essay has developed, it has started to raise questions that I can’t answer responsibly without further thought and research.

Form follows function—in any artistic project, not just architecture.

This is also a serious topic that should not be written about casually. In order to properly address how women’s status and contemporary power dynamics converge into nonviolent resistance, the next essay will require careful attention to the interaction between formal law and lived customs. These distinctions are often blurred in public discussion and require nuanced arguments to untangle. I’ve therefore chosen to postpone publication so that I can conduct further research and let the argument develop in a way that reflects the seriousness of the topic.

The essay will be published in the coming weeks.