AYATI: Love Letters to the Wounded and Verses on Healing, Liberation, and the Cost of Silence

State Violence and the Politics of Sympathy

On New Year’s Eve, Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old Black father of two, was shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in his own front yard in Los Angeles. Just one week later, on January 7, 2026, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old White mother, was killed by an ICE agent during a raid in Minneapolis. While both were U.S citizens by birth and killed by federal agents under questionable circumstances, the national response revealed a deep-seated racial disparity in empathy, resources, and outrage.

The death of Renee Good triggered an eruption of condemnation, leading to nationwide protests and a GoFundMe campaign that reached $1.5 million in a matter of 2 days, while Keith Porter’s GoFundMe stalled at a mere $31,000–only jumping to $302,000 after Renee Good’s GoFundMe was closed. His story struggled to gain traction even as activists pointed to the blatant double standard. This gap is not accidental; it is proof of a system that treats White deaths as shocking anomalies and Black deaths as routine.

The media and political response to Good was quick and intense, involving the resignation of six federal prosecutors in Minnesota who protested the Department of Justice’s handling of the case. Porter, however, received less scrutiny. The Los Angeles police refused to identify the shooter for weeks and provided little to no information on the investigation, allowing the state to frame Porter as an “active shooter” without any pushback from the public.

Sociological research consistently shows that White women and girls are prioritized as “ideal victims” who are portrayed as innocent and “worth saving,” a phenomenon dubbed as “Missing White Woman Syndrome." This same hierarchy of victimhood applies to those killed by the state. While Renee Good was described as a “Good Samaritan” and a “beautiful human” by the public, the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to label her as a “domestic terrorist” were met with widespread disbelief and outrage from local officials.

Keith Porter’s reputation, on the other hand, was immediately ruined by official accounts that focused on his firing celebratory gunshots into the air, a common New Year’s Eve tradition, which the state used to justify his death sentence. For Porter, humanity and the right to public grief were conditional upon perfect behavior, whereas for Good, empathy was granted as an inherent trait of her identity.

The disparity in handling these cases suggests that outrage is conditional; the public grieves when they can “see themselves” in the victim. Because the majority of the population can more easily relate to the “damsel in distress” or the “innocent neighbor” archetypes when they are White, cases like Good’s become “mega-cases” that command state-level priority.

When the victim is Black, the system relies on stereotypes to dehumanize them, frequently labeling them as “suspects” or “criminals” regardless of the facts. This empathetic failure not only influences media coverage but also dictates the distribution of investigative resources, as law enforcement feels less public pressure to solve cases involving Black victims.

Keith Porter’s death was a tragedy. His life mattered. Renee Good’s death was a tragedy. Her life mattered. I am angry and disgusted at what has happened to both of them.

And two things can be true at once: America’s handling of these two tragedies proves that citizenship means very little when it is weighed against race. The massive mobilization for Renee Good compared to the institutional shielding in the Keith Porter case reinforces a racial hierarchy where White lives are treated as sacred and Black lives as disposable. Until the nation refuses to ration its outrage based on the color of a victim’s skin, the system of state violence will continue to operate with a license to disappear those it deems unworthy of empathy.

May Keith Porter Jr. , Renee Nicole Good, Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, Victor Manuel Diaz, Parody La, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Jaime Alanis Garcia, Jose Castro-Rivera, Nenko Stanev Gantchev, Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, Foud Saeed Abdulkadir, Jean Wilson Brutus, Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani, Pete Sumalo Montejo, Francisco Gaspar-Andres, Kai Yin Wong, Gabriel Garcia Aviles, Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh, Leo Cruz-Silva, Miguel Angel Garcia-Hernandez, Huabing Xie, Norlan Guzman-Fuentes, Ismael Ayala Uribe, Santos Reyes Banegas, Oscar Duarte Rascon, Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, Chaofeng Ge, Tien Xuan Phan, Isidro Perez, Johnny Noviello, Jesus Molina-Verya, Abelardo Avelleneda-Delgado, Marie Ange Blaise, Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, Brayan Rayo-Garzon, Juan Alexis Tineo-Martinez, Maksym Chernyak, Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, Genry Ruiz Guillen, and the still unnamed 52-year old Chinese woman who committed suicide on March 29, 2025 at a U.S. Border Patrol station in Yuma, Arizona all rest in peace. May we cry all of their names. And may the world refuse to forget the lives Brian Palacios, Johnathan Ross, and other officers chose to end.

Resources: Ways to get active in the community

To protect our community from ICE, please check out these resources:
https://iceout.org/
https://eyesupapp.com/
https://resistmap.com/
https://stopice.net/
WAZE App
If you spot ICE in your area, please do not call the police; call the hotline in your area for rapid response:
Detroit, Dearborn, Royal Oak, & Warren Hotline - 313-635-3633
Oakland County Hotline - 248-340-3775
Lenawee County Hotline - 517-438-0278
Grand Rapids - 616-238-0081
Washtenaw County - 734-355-2707
Muskegon & Ottawa Counties - 616-251-1923
West Ottawa, Van Buren, & Allegan - 616-229-0205
Jackson - 517-206-4860
You can also call 211, which is the statewide phone number. Unfortunately, they are not a rapid response and are currently understaffed.

Do not forget to use the SALUTE when reporting sightings:
S - Size: How many agents or people were involved?
A - Activity: What were they doing? (arresting someone, going door to door, staking out, etc.)
L - Location: Exact address or nearest cross streets
U - Unit: Identifying details (vehicle types, badges, license plate numbers, name on vests, etc.)
T - Time: When did the incident take place?
E - Equipment: What kind of equipment was used? (weapons, radios, surveillance tech, etc.)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Revolution Reduced to a Quote

On the third Monday of January, Americans engage in a routine of remembrance for a revolutionary King that often feels more like a burial than a celebration. While well-meaning people share palatable snippets of his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, the historical reality is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been systemically white-washed to fit a non-threatening narrative of racial harmony. This commercialization of Dr. King ignores the agitating figure he became in his final years: a radical who was once one of the most hated men in America, holding a 75% disapproval rating at the time of his assassination.

The myth of passive nonviolence is dangerous. In current discourse, Dr. King’s nonviolence is often misappropriated as a mandate for “civility” and “getting along.” However, as James A. Colaico, an infamous biographer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said, Dr. Martin Luther King was an “apostle of militant nonviolence.” He used it not as a plea for peace, but as a forceful weapon to paralyze oppressive systems. As he once said in 1968, “nonviolent protest must now mature to a new level … this higher level is mass civil disobedience.” To Dr. King, nonviolence did not mean peaceful in the sense of avoiding conflict; it was a method of creating tension to force negotiation. As many scholars, such as Mark Engler and Paul Engler, Wornie Reed, David Chappell, and others noted, Dr. King was not a “peacemaker” in the traditional sense; he went to prison nearly 30 times, believing that “peace is not the absence of tension but the presence of justice.”

Contrary to the “law and order” rhetoric often used to silence modern activists, Dr. King was a loyal advocate of civil disobedience. He famously asserted that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” His later work, particularly during the Chicago Freedom Movement and the Poor People’s Campaign, moved beyond Southern legal rights to demand human rights, including a guaranteed annual income and a radical redistribution of economic and political power. He rejected the sedating "tranquilizing drug of gradualism” and demanded freedom.

The state that now claims Dr. King as a national saint once viewed him as a grave threat to national security. Under J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s COINTELPRO marked Dr. King as the most dangerous Black man in America and subjected him to intense surveillance, character ruin, and psychological warfare. This included an anonymous package sent by the Bureau, which contained a falsified recording and a letter urging Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to kill himself.

Even his death is shrouded in what his family maintains was a systemic effort to silence him. In 1999, a civil jury reached a unanimous verdict that King’s assassination was the result of a high-level conspiracy involving local, state, and federal government agencies. After death, the “Southernification” of his work has protected the feelings of Northern liberals by ignoring his critiques of internal colonialism and police brutality in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.

Today, the whitewashing continues as politicians weaponize decontextualized quotes to oppose affirmative action, diversity programs, and the teaching of accurate Black history. This idea of nonviolence means peacefulness is a mockery of Dr. King’s actual work, as his dream included eradicating racism, not ignoring it through the lens of colorblindness. To truly honor Dr. King is to embrace his anger with the triple evils of “racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.” As Dr. King himself urged, embrace “the fierce urgency now” to advance equity.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not assassinated because he dreamed; he was assassinated because he refused to wait. Until America stops mistaking comfort for progress, it will continue to betray the very legacy it claims to honor.

Strands of Survival: Hair as History and Rebellion

For many, hair is simply an aesthetic choice, but within the Afrikan diaspora, it represents a complex intersection of ancestral memory, systemic resistance, and identity. Far from being just “hair,” it serves as a visual language that has survived centuries of colonial erasure and institutional policing.

In many pre-colonial West Afrikan societies such as the Fulani, Wolof, Mende, Nubian, Mandigo, and several others, hairstyles were indicators of an individual’s social status, age, religion, wealth, and tribal affiliation. For example, among the Ashanti tribe of modern-day Ghana, hairstyles would function as a sophisticated visual language that communicated data about an individual's identity, such as geographic origin and social/economic status. While in Yoruba culture, intricate braiding patterns are believed to send messages to the Orisha which are divine spirits. The head is still often regarded as the most sacred part of the body. It is seen as a spiritual energy conductor and a direct conduit to the gods. Because of this perceived spiritual power, hair styling was a trusted social ritual, often performed only by relatives or close friends to protect the individual’s spirit from potential harm.

During the transatlantic slave trade, enslavers would frequently shave the heads of captured people as a dehumanizing first step in systemically erasing identity and culture. Enslaved people, who were stripped of their traditional oils and specialized combs, would use lard or kerosene as conditioners and sheep-fleece carding tools as combs.

During these brutal conditions, hair became a necessary tool of survival and liberation. Oral traditions and research suggest that enslaved women in South America and the U.S. utilized intricate braiding patterns commonly known as “canerows” in the Caribbean and “cornrows” in the U.S. to braid maps of escape routes into their hair, marketing roads, rivers, and meeting points that remained undetectable to others. Furthermore, West Afrikan women famously braided rice seeds and grains into their hair before being kidnapped, ensuring they would be able to grow familiar crops wherever they end up.

In the 20th century, hair became more of a powerful political symbol. The 1960s and 70s saw the rise of the Afro, which became a visual statement of the Black Power movement. Reclaiming natural textures was a radical act of self-empowerment that rejected Eurocentric beauty standards and the history of forced assimilation. For activists like Angela Davis, the Afro was an expression of pride, power, and resistance against systemic racism. Similarly, locs, while often carrying deep spiritual weight in Ratafarianism, an Abrahamic, Afrocentric movement that comes from Jamaica, symbolizes a pushback against colonial systems and a reconnection with Afrikan heritage.

The importance of Black hair is anchored in the communal spaces where it’s taken care of Black barbershops and beauty salons are described as “sacred institutions" and “cultural hubs” that preserve the pulse of the community. Historically, these spaces have been vital for political mobilization; during the Civil Rights movement, barbershops served as meeting grounds where strategies for resistance were born and information flowed freely. Today, they remain sanctuaries where individuals can engage within their communities.

Despite its rich history and cultural significance, institutional bias against Black hair persists. Studies indicate that Black women with natural hairstyles are often perceived as less professional or less competent in corporate environments. In schools, discriminatory dress codes have led to suspension of students, such as Darryl George in Texas, whose locs were deemed a violation of district policy despite their cultural significance.

In response, the CROWN Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) was introduced to prohibit race-based hair discrimination. As of 2024, twenty-seven states have enacted this legislation, though a federal version remains at a standstill in the Senate.

For many, the journey includes the “Big Chop,” which is the act of cutting off chemically-treated hair to embrace natural texture. This is often experienced as a spiritual rite of passage, representing a conscious decision to release emotional baggage and past trauma. It is a radical act of self-love that honors the “crown” made specifically for each individual, reaffirming that Black hair is, and always has been, a symbol of cultural memory and unshakeable pride.

The Rabbit Hole Was Designed.

The year 2025 was defined by a quick and immediate social, cultural, and political backslide towards conservatism. Far from being a niche concern for political scientists, the influence of white nationalists and anti-progressive groups infiltrated every aspect of mainstream pop culture. From beauty standards and fashion to language and reality television, it mirrors historical tactics used by the Nazi regime in publications like NS-Fraune-Warte, which was the only party-approved biweekly magazine for women in Nazi Germany. It was designed to indoctrinate readers into the roles of housewife and mother by mixing domestic advice with Nazi propaganda. This phenomenon in 2025, known as the “alt-right pipeline,” acted as a digital rabbit hole, using the disguise of neutral algorithms to lead unsuspecting media consumers into far-right radicalization.

The indoctrination of 2025 was not a series of accidents but a carefully constructed cultural shift. It operated through “subversive exposure”, a technique where extremist movements normalize radical belief systems using memes and relatable pop culture content to spark questions about mainstream truth. Historical precedents show this “subversive exposure” was central to NS-Frauen-Warte, which was background music to government policy by mixing neutral household tips and recipes with messages of racial purity and obedience. Even seemingly innocent advertisements became vehicles for this ideology; for instance, major ad campaigns in 2025 were criticized for hyper-focusing on “golden genetics” and Euro-coded beauty standards, much like the Nazi-era advertisements in magazines like die Gartenlaube and NS-Fraune-Warte that promoted “only blonde” products as a sign of being “thoroughbred” and racially superior.

For many now, the entry point was the “manosphere,” a loose network of communities that misrepresent men as victims of modern social climates. Influencers like Andrew Tate thrived by weaponizing economic anxiety and social isolation, offering regressive narratives that reinforce unequal gender power structures as a compelling solution to real-world struggles. Simultaneously, the rise of the “tradwife” phenomenon provided a “soft face” for extreme rhetoric, using visually aesthetic influencer marketing to glorify domestic submissiveness and reject fourth-wave feminism. These influencers often describe their transition from a liberating lifestyle to a traditional one as an “awakening” or “discovery of the truth.” These techniques are synonymous with “redpilling,” a term for radicalization into counterfactual worldviews. The danger of this media rise in 2025 was amplified by advances in AI-driven persuasion, which sharply reduced the cost and increased the precision of shaping public opinion. These technologies allowed for the creation of tailored messages at scale, making the distribution of human preferences a choice variable for elites rather than a fixed constraint. Furthermore, algorithms on platforms like YouTube and TikTok function as “addiction machines,” intentionally steering users toward increasingly growing and niche content to maximize watch time. This created “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” that isolated individuals from contradictory information and deepened their commitment to extremist beliefs over time.

The danger of this widespread indoctrination cannot be overstated. Right-wing extremism is a complex combination of ideologies—including fascism, xenophobia, racial supremacy, and many more—that threatens global security and stability. This radicalization is often linked to Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism, also known as REMVE, which views social cohesion as an active threat and has resulted in devastating terrorist attacks, such as those in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Buffalo, New York.

Now, the normalization of hateful rhetoric through irony and dark humor functions to lower the barrier for participation in these extreme ideologies, actively eroding psychological barriers to violence.

To avoid falling into these digital traps, we must recognize that none of this is the fault of a singular individual, but rather a byproduct of bystander tech algorithms. We must become incredibly discerning and understand that an innocent spiral into trends like “divine femininity” or hyper-masculinity can lead to the enforcement of traditional gender roles and extremist rhetoric. Intervening in these processes is difficult because these online spaces prime participants to distrust anything outside their community, often labeling mainstream facts as “brainwashing.” However, the path to de-programming begins with practicing and implementing critical digital and media literacy. We must learn to identify encoded terms that express socially unacceptable hate through ambiguous phrases.

We must continue to interrogate this culture as rigorously as we question any other system of power. It only benefits the radical right if we engage, even ironically, with rage-bait content that populates our feeds. So audit your digital environment. If you notice a family member, friend, partner, or even an associate acting off or consuming increasingly divisive content, talk to them before they fall further down the rabbit hole. We must demand greater algorithmic accountability from tech companies and support media that prioritize intersectional justice and fact-based storytelling. In 2026, let us choose to build a society where individuals feel valued and heard through healthy forms of identity and community, rather than the exclusionary cages of the alt-right.

Growth is not Passive: Why ABA Matters

As the world marks Autism Awareness Month this April, the spotlight turns to the tools and therapies that empower neurodiverse individuals to thrive. At the heart of this conversation is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a scientifically grounded approach widely recognized as the gold standard for supporting individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

ABA is defined as a science where principles of behavior analysis are applied systematically to improve socially significant behaviors. According to Zehra Forte, co-founder of Better Future Autism Therapy and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) with eight years of experience, the therapy is fundamental to the growth of those on the spectrum. "ABA therapy is so important for individuals diagnosed with ASD," Forte explained in a recent interview. "ABA promotes independence. It creates natural learning opportunities to promote communication and social skills while reducing harmful behaviors."

The effectiveness of ABA is rooted in its seven core dimensions: it is applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, conceptually systemic, effective, and capable of generality. This structured framework ensures that interventions produce meaningful, durable effects that extend beyond the clinic and into a child’s daily life.

While data tracking is essential to the practice, the true impact is seen in the lives of children and their families. Forte emphasizes that while many view the science as rigid, it is deeply personalized. "Each learner I have worked with is truly a success story," she shared. She recalled a recent case of a 3.5-year-old learner who initially struggled to speak and used only single, difficult-to-understand words. After one year of comprehensive ABA therapy, the child began engaging in six-word sentences, became fully toilet-trained, and successfully transitioned into a school environment. "His challenging behaviors reduced by 60-100% on a day-to-day average," Forte noted, illustrating how targeted intervention can catch a child up to age-appropriate milestones. Despite its proven track record, endorsed by the U.S. Surgeon General and the American Psychological Association, ABA is often misunderstood, surrounded by misconceptions that the therapy is only intended for children with service needs. Forte clarifies, “ "Common misconceptions are that learners have to have ‘extremely high-challenging behaviors’... [or] that only level 3 ASD learners need ABA."

Another frequent barrier is the “early intervention or nothing” mentality. While early support is crucial, ABA is a lifespan-oriented science. Forte notes, “Another misconception is that children on the spectrum outside of the early-intervention age no longer need therapy" and "that you cannot continue ABA therapy if the child is school-aged". In reality, ABA remains effective through adolescence and adulthood, adapting to the changing needs of the individuals.

Modern ABA is far more versatile than simply classroom drills; it is a person centered approach that prioritizes autonomy and quality of life by supporting vocational training to help teenagers and adults succeed in employment and professional relationships, while also mastering independent living skills like personal hygiene, food preparation, and household chores. In educational settings, the science fosters academic and cognitive growth by improving attention, reading comprehension, and problem-solving, and it is equally effective at managing co-occurring conditions, like anxiety, ADHD, and sleep disorders by identifying the function of behaviors to teach replacement skills. Central to this modern approach is the empowerment of the learners' own agency, as Zehra Forte explains that “Teaching them to advocate for themselves is typically the first step!", which necessitates identifying "consent and assent from not only the child’s parent, but also the child."

Autism Awareness Month is a time to foster a more inclusive society. For experts like Zehra Forte, this begins with education and empathy. "Spreading Autism awareness promotes a spotlight in which hopefully will prompt others in society who might not be impacted by ASD directly, to learn about it," she said.

How can you help? Remove judgment. When you see a family navigating a challenging moment in public, offer a kind smile instead of a stare. As Forte reminds us, "You truly do not know unless you walk in their shoes". Educate yourself by learning how to grow accustomed to, work with, and communicate with children and adults who have ASD, which includes understanding common triggers of over-sensitivity. It is vital to recognize that Autism looks different on everyone. And finally, support inclusion encouraging community members to undergo training on how to interact supportively with neurodiverse neighbors.

This month, let us commit to creating a world where every individual with autism is understood, supported, and given the chance to reach their maximum potential. "Awareness leads to acceptance," Forte says, and acceptance is the first step toward a better future.

The Arab You Know Does Not Exist

As the United States celebrates National Arab American Heritage Month this April, the community is calling for a long-overdue shift in how they are portrayed in popular culture. While nearly four million Americans trace their roots to the Arab world, they remain a community that is frequently misunderstood and often discriminated against, largely due to persistent media failures.

Despite decades of advocacy, the latest data shows that visibility for Arab-Americans in Hollywood is actually declining. The 2025 Hollywood Diversity Report found that in 2024, there were zero South West Asian or North Afrikan (SWANA) leads among the year’s top theatrical films. Furthermore, while SWANA actors reached proportionate representation in background roles, around 2.1%, SWANA women were excluded altogether among top theatrical film actors during the same period.

A recent survey of Henry Ford College Arab American students provides a raw look at the personal impact of these statistics. When asked to rate Arab representation on a scale of 1 to 10, the average number was a 4, with most respondents providing scores as low as 3 or 2, describing mainstream portrayals as “rare” and “very inaccurate”.

The survey respondents highlighted a narrow range of harmful archetypes that continue to define them. Students specifically pointed to Abu Nazir in Homeland and the “Crimson Jihad” in True Lies as characters that normalize the idea of Arabs as “terrorists” or “violent extremists”. Even in animation, the evil advisor trope found in Jafar from Aladdin remains recognizable and damaging to Arab representation.

One student respondent noted the real-world consequences of these images: “People jokingly ask what’s in my backpack, or joke about me hiding a bomb somewhere”. Another student shared that they receive “looks” and “micro-aggressive comments” from people whose only exposure to Arab culture is through these skewed lenses.

The lack of nuanced representation extends into the $200 billion gaming industry. Video games have a massive tendency to slot Arabs into the role of the antagonist in modern war shooters, often asking players to shoot “non-descript Muslims” in fictional South West Asian countries. Research indicates that these games are so effective at reinforcing bias that players often associate Arabs with terrorism even when specific “terrorists” in a game are not Arab. When Arabs do appear as “good guys” in games, they are frequently depicted in relation to ancient relics or as hedonistic oil barons with infinite money, further erasing the reality of modern, everyday Arab life.

Experts argue that these portrayals contribute to a “symbolic annihilation,” where the absence of trivialization of a group in media signals to the audience that they are not valued in society. In news coverage of global conflicts, this bias manifests as the identifiable victim effect, where Israeli victims are humanized with names, families, and personal histories, while Arab victims are reported as undifferentiated statistics.

When asked what meaningful representation would look like, the student survey respondents were clear: they want to be seen as “normal people like everyone else”. They expressed a desire for stories that highlight the “beauty of the culture,” including its deep traditions of "generosity and hospitality”, rather than focusing solely on political conflict.

As Arab American Heritage Month continues, the message from the community is simple; we are more than the Triple-B trope of Billionaires, Bombers, or Belly Dancers. We are doctors, lawyers, and teachers whose stories deserve to be told by writers and directors who truly understand us.

The Digital Assault

As we observe Sexual Assault and Prevention Awareness Month this April, a new and insidious threat is emerging from the digital realm: the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence against women and girls. While the technology promises innovation, its current trajectory is marked by the mass non-consensual exploitation of images and the automation of age-old biases. From rampant deepfakes to algorithms that systemically exclude women from economic opportunities, AI is increasingly functioning as a tool of gender-based violence and discrimination.

The statistics regarding AI-generated content are staggering. Recent data reveals that 98% of deepfake videos online are pornographic. 99% of those deepfakes target women and girls. This is not merely a technical glitch; it is a profound violation of bodily autonomy and agency. Explicit AI-generated deepfake content has grown over 550% year-over-year, yet approximately 1.8 billion women and girls worldwide have no laws protecting them from this form of digital violence.

These deepfakes represent a digital evolution of image-based sexual abuse, stripping victims of their dignity at a scale previously unimaginable. The trauma is real; over two-thirds of women journalists and activists report online violence, with over 40% stating it led to real-world attacks.

Experts argue that this hostility is “woven into the very data AI learns from.” AI models are trained on vast amounts of publicly available content that reflects society’s structural inequalities. Consequently, these systems do not just reflect bias; they often uncritically reproduce and exaggerate it.

The anti-woman nature of current AI is further fueled by a lack of diversity in the rooms where these models are built. Women make up only 22% of AI professionals and less than 14% at senior levels. Because the creators are predominantly male, the technology often mirrors patriarchal structures, portraying women in domestic or subservient roles while associating men with leadership and careers. This is visible in our daily interactions: voice assistants like Alexa and Siri were originally designed with subservient personalities and default feminine voices, reinforcing stereotypes that women are suited only for service roles.

The bias embedded in AI extends far beyond the digital screen, manifesting in life-altering consequences that automate systemic inequality. In the professional world, hiring algorithms have been caught systematically downgrading resumes that contain indicators associated with women, such as participation in female-dominated professional networks or mentions of women’s colleges.

Similarly, in the medical field, diagnostic AI systems trained primarily on male-centric data frequently misdiagnose women, particularly regarding heart disease and thoracic health, because the systems are often unaware of symptoms that present differently in female patients. These economic barriers are further reinforced by biased financial algorithms that deem women less creditworthy, limiting their access to microloans and essential resources even when women are statistically better at repaying debt.

The evidence is no longer just anecdotal; it is structural. As we finish up Sexual Assault and Prevention Awareness Month, we must confront a difficult reality: the very tools marketed as the future of progress are often designed to damage women’s agency. From the mass, non-consensual exploitation of women’s images in pornographic deepfakes to algorithms that systematically downgrade female resumes, AI is functioning as an automated extension of the patriarchy. In response, a growing movement of activists and researchers is calling for strategic refusal, a collective boycott of AI technologies until they meet fundamental human rights standards.

This movement argues that we should no longer treat AI as a “neutral” or “objective” tool. Instead, we must recognize these systems as reflections of the patriarchal data and the predominantly male creators that shape them. Currently, the gap between men and women in AI professionals is creating a massive blind spot as the unique lived experiences of women are ignored during the design process. Because the pride of the industry ignores context-sensitive development, the result is often “software, made woman, made servant,” visible in voice assistants originally programmed to respond playfully to sexual harassment.

True reform requires that tech companies move beyond performative ethics toward mandatory transparency. We must demand compulsory intersectional gender audits and discrimination testing for all high-risk AI systems before they are released to the public to identify subtle structural biases.

Furthermore, it is essential to dismantle the barriers that keep women out of the industry. Building diverse development teams ensures that the perspectives of those most affected by AI are integral to the design process, making it far more likely that harmful biases are noticed and eliminated.

Finally, corporate accountability must evolve past the implementation of simplistic filters that merely block flagged material without addressing the structural biases embedded deep within the models’ architecture. The status quo allows inequality to be automated at scale, and history shows that when corporate interest determines the research agenda, the rights of the marginalized are treated as mere externalities. It is time to demand a digital future that respects human dignity, autonomy, and equality for all, ensuring that technology serves as a tool for empowerment rather than a mechanism for exclusion.

Until these demands are met, the most powerful tool we have is the power of refusal. We must reject the use of AI. Just as workers in the creative industries have turned to unions and strikes to secure protections against AI, the public must recognize that continuing to feed data into these systems only validates their biased outputs. A future built on biased code is not innovation, it is injustice at scale.