Under Joe Biden, violence against women and all oppressed people will continue. This is a given, because this violence is baked into the fabric of the United States. It did not arise under Trump.

In the newest iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by the police murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, activists across the country have called for the defunding of the police as a means to put an end to this racist violence. Biden has time and time again rejected this idea. In fact, he asserts that police should get more funding. Under Biden, women like Breonna Taylor will continue to suffer because of over inflated police budgets, empowering police forces through increasingly militarised tactics that will be used to monitor and control our communities. This is what killed Breonna Taylor, not a lack of financial support for the police.

Biden was one of the architects of the Iraq war. Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama, who ran a prolific drone program that killed around 700 civilians overseas. In Biden’s platform, he commits to maintaining America’s military as the strongest in the world. This can only mean subjecting more women and children around the world to militaristic violence, taking lives, and destabilising communities of brown people abroad.

As I voted for Biden, a thought I could not get out of my head was that both him and Trump have a number of serious allegations of sexual assault against them. As a survivor of sexual violence, I felt floored trying to grapple with the knowledge that the two most viable options for president are accused of being sexual predators. The risk for women is that they are voting against their own interests here, period.

“If Biden wins, we still can’t stop fighting and if Trump wins, we fight harder”