There’s a moment in every toxic situation where you realize you don’t have to keep fighting battles designed to drain you. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is give it all the middle finger and walk away.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, especially as a Moroccan woman who escaped a country that treats women like we’re not fully human.

Let me be clear about something first

I was one of the “lucky” ones. My family didn’t pressure me about marriage or wait for some man to take me to “his home.”

I made something out of myself. I completed my education. Got my master’s degree, as well as two bachelor’s degrees. Worked. Did everything I could within my “limits” as a woman in a specific city in Morocco.

None of it mattered.

Society still looked down at me because I’m a woman. Men everywhere saw me as a piece of meat. As dumb simply because of my gender. As a house chores and baby-making machine, nothing more. I was never seen as a full human being with the same worth as a man.

What it’s actually like being a woman in Morocco

Some people will read this and think I’m exaggerating. They’ll say there are women living in Morocco who are doing just fine.

Yes, there are women living there. But none of them genuinely feel valued or seen as human the way they should be. I saw it in my extended family. I could feel the unspoken misery. They all have different stories they share in comment sections online, where they can be a bit more themselves instead of pretending: unhappy marriages, abusive husbands, daddy issues, harassment at work, at school, on the streets, self-esteem issues, regrets about unfinished education and giving up their careers. The list goes on.

Let’s be honest about what marriage actually means there. They tell women we’re going to “our home” when we get married, but none of these men change the house ownership to their wives’ names. It’s his home, his rules, his property. You’re just living there. And don’t even get me started on the mothers-in-law who still believe their sons are being stolen by wicked wives. Oedipus complex and mama’s boys? A huge proportion of Moroccan men have this twisted relationship with their mothers, and the wives are the ones who pay the price.

Here’s another disgusting thing: these incels actually think they’re the “prize.” They believe men are doing women a favor by marrying them, rescuing them from becoming spinsters or a burden to their fathers. What a joke!

On social media, men constantly told us we’re “expired” by 25 if we haven’t married and procreated. Like we have a shelf life. Like our worth has an expiration date stamped on our foreheads.

The worst part? Incels and the majority of Moroccan men see marriage as a master/slave relationship where the woman gets completely erased from her humanity. She’s supposed to devote every waking hour to pleasing her man, doing chores, raising kids, staying home at all times. It’s extremely rare to meet a Moroccan man who doesn’t have this twisted mindset about women.

Oh no, that’s not even the worst part. Here it comes: rape and femicide rates in Morocco have gone through the roof in recent years. It’s always been bad, but it’s reached an unprecedented level of extreme misogyny. And don’t get me started on pedophilia against girls, please! I saw every form of abuse, violence, and crime in the media. Girls, even babies, getting kidnapped and raped. Getting sold to old men with one foot in the grave. Married women, including newlyweds, getting killed for no reason at all or for some trivial one. And their killers and abusers? They get away with it easily. The punishments are so lenient they don’t deter men from committing these crimes again and again. The law barely applies, and when it does, it’s a slap on the wrist.

Well, I said it’s always the women’s fault, right? Of course it is in a twisted patriarchal society where women are reduced to their bodies and their ability to please men in bed, cook, clean, and procreate. Nothing more.

I feel suffocated writing this.

None of this happened to me personally, but I saw it in the media almost every day. Story after story after story. Some readers might think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. This is documented. This is real. This is what Moroccan women live with.

And here’s the thing about harassment: I’m a hijabi woman. I wear multiple pieces of clothing that cover me from head to toe. I still couldn’t escape harassment in the streets. The clothing excuse they love to use? Complete bullshit. It was never about what we wear. It was always about control and treating us like we’re not human.

Sometimes all it takes is one girl to comment or post something about women’s experiences to see a flood of incels insulting her, calling her names. “Your kitchen!” “You’re PMSing!” and every variant of that bullshit. Men twist Islam teachings in ways that show it’s not benefiting women at all, while they present themselves as saints and angels, never at fault. It’s always a woman’s fault. Always, by default.

Every time I walked across the streets, my nervous system went into full alert. I had to walk quickly, head down, constantly aware of every man around me. Sometimes I took expensive taxis just to feel a fraction safer, even though I couldn’t afford them. Because walking meant risking harassment, assault, or worse.

I knew that if I wasn’t the one who got killed or raped today, it could be me tomorrow. Any day. Any time. That’s not paranoia. That’s reality for women in Morocco. We live with this constant, exhausting fear.

The “red pill” advocates and incels don’t just want to dictate how we should live. I’ve seen discussions where these men fantasize about burying newborn girls alive, as if female lives are so worthless they shouldn’t even exist. Feminicide isn’t just accepted in these circles. It’s praised. Celebrated as some twisted form of justice.

We’re told our place is in the kitchen or as prisoners in our own homes. We’re not seen as individuals with dreams or aspirations. We’re property to be controlled.

These men genuinely believe they understand the nature of women better than women themselves. The audacity is unbelievable, and it’s dangerous.

I couldn’t do it anymore

For a while, I watched other Moroccan women fighting on social media, raising awareness, pushing back against this oppression, trying to educate and change minds. I admired them. But as the toxicity only got worse, as the misogyny reached heights that made me question humanity itself, I realized something: I can’t do this anymore.

When you’re living in a society that doesn’t see you as human, the constant battle for basic recognition becomes crushing. Every day is a fight just to exist, just to claim space, just to breathe without someone telling you you’re doing it wrong.

I stopped engaging with the misogynistic garbage that filled Moroccan society, online and offline. Not because I stopped caring. But because I recognized that my mental health and my actual life were more valuable than trying to reason with people who had already decided I wasn’t fully human.

I know my worth as a woman. I know who I am and what I bring to this world. That’s not up for debate with men who think I should be grateful they don’t advocate for my literal burial.

My ultimate middle finger: leaving Morocco behind

Here’s where everything connects: I made Canada my permanent home, and I have absolutely no plans to ever go back to Morocco.

People back home, including my parents (whom I love, and yes, I feel guilty about leaving them behind), always ask me “how are you doing in الغربة (l-ghorba)?” L-ghorba means something like “foreign land” or “exile.” It carries this heavy meaning of being away from home, of being displaced, of not belonging.

But here’s what they don’t understand: l-ghorba isn’t Canada. L-ghorba is Morocco.

I’m not homesick in Canada. I don’t miss Morocco, not even one bit. I can’t miss a misogynistic country. I just can’t.

Morocco is where I never felt like I belonged. Morocco is where patriotism felt like a lie I was supposed to tell myself while being treated as less than human. Morocco is where I was never at home, never at ease, never at peace, and certainly never safe.

Canada, despite all the struggles that come with building a new life from scratch in a foreign country – the language barriers, the cultural adjustments, the loneliness, the financial challenges – Canada is where I finally felt like I could breathe. Canada is where I’m seen as a human being first, not just as a woman who needs to be controlled, hidden, or silenced.

There’s so much more to my story, layers I won’t disclose publicly. But the core truth is simple: I’ve never felt more at home than I do here in Canada. This is where I belong. This is my home. Morocco isn’t, and it never really was.

Living now

These days, instead of spending hours arguing with people who genuinely believe I should be buried alive or locked in a kitchen, I invest that time in things that actually matter to me. I work on projects I care about. I spend time with people who see my full humanity. I write, I create, I live. All things I can finally do freely, thousands of kilometers away from a country that would prefer I do none of these things.

The misogyny is still there in Morocco. It’s woven into everything. The toxic voices haven’t disappeared, and the oppression continues for the women I left behind. But from here, in my chosen home, those voices no longer have a hold on my daily peace. I’ve decided they don’t get to live in my head rent-free anymore.

That’s my ultimate middle finger to the madness: living well in a country where I’m free, knowing my worth, building a life on my own terms, and refusing to let Morocco’s limitations become my reality ever again.

About misogyny in Canada

It would be naive of me to say misogyny doesn’t exist here. Of course it does. I just haven’t experienced it the same way I did in Morocco. Not yet, anyway.

People here mind their own business. They don’t judge you openly. They don’t stare at you on the street or make comments about your existence. I haven’t been harassed walking to the grocery store or anywhere else. I haven’t heard men telling me I should get married ASAP and procreate, that I’m expired, or that I belong in the kitchen (and no, not as a professional chef getting paid for it).

Maybe I have experienced it without knowing. Maybe it’s there in the job applications I send out that never get callbacks. Maybe it’s subtle in ways I can’t prove or point to. But if it exists here, it’s nothing compared to Morocco.

The truth is, all men are misogynistic to varying degrees. No exceptions. I’ve seen it even in my own immediate family members, the men I love. It’s not always loud or violent. Sometimes it’s just… there. Woven into how they think, how they react, what they believe about women without even realizing it.

But there’s a massive difference between that background level of misogyny that exists everywhere and the active, violent, dehumanizing hatred I dealt with in Morocco. Here, I can walk outside without fear. I can exist without constant harassment. I’m not treated like property or like my life has an expiration date.

Canada isn’t perfect. But I can breathe here and being treated like an actual human being. That’s the difference.

What I want you to know

I’m sharing this not just for other Moroccan women who might be reading, but for the world to understand what we’re dealing with. Morocco isn’t just dealing with “traditional values” or “cultural differences.” This is about men who openly fantasize about our deaths, about a society that blames us for our own harassment no matter what we do.

This is the reality for Moroccan women. This is what we navigate every single day.

And I’m done with it. I walked away, gave it the middle finger, and I’m not looking back.

Featured image courtesy of Unsplash.