Lawyer, activist, and political commentator Carolina Santana Sabbagh wants Dominicans to stop treating feminism like a bad word.

“Especially women, they say, ‘Listen I’m all for equality, I really care women’s issues, but honestly I don’t think I’m a feminist.’ And I think that’s because the term feminist is still socially rejected,” she said. “There is this idea that feminist women are this ridiculous term of ‘feminazi’ that you can see sometimes online, that they hate men. It’s been socially constructed so that you don’t feel comfortable saying that you’re a feminist. And I think that is something that we should all break with.”

Santana Sabbagh advocates for laws that protect women and girls in the Dominican Republic.

“There is no moment in life where girls and women are not discriminated against and do not face more challenges than what would be fair in comparison to their male counterparts. One of every five girls in Dominican Republic leaves school because she becomes pregnant. More women go to college than men, but women have three times the unemployment rate than men in Dominican Republic,” she explained.

However, she believes that, as women continue to raise their voices, the oppression gets more and more vulnerable.