Look, autonomy is not some luxury concept for people who already have choices. It is the difference between my mother deciding to stay in Bulgaria because she wants to, not because she cannot afford the paperwork to leave. It is the difference between a journalist writing what is true versus what the oligarch who owns the paper will tolerate. When you are dependent — on a visa, on a job, on family money, on a man — you do not get to have opinions, you have permissions. I watch girls I know take jobs that make them smaller because they need the residence permit attached to it. Autonomy means you can refuse. You can say no to the call center, no to the bad editor, no to the boy, no to the country if you need to. That is not selfish; that is the only way anything changes. You cannot build a real journalism, a real movement, a real life on borrowed time and borrowed money.
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