whereupon the author has her period so she thinks she understands female subjugation
To make a man bleed, one must cut the flesh. For a woman to bleed, she has only to wait for the moon.
The jealous ones call us witches when we’re too powerful to be defined by or limited to their labels. Instead, they try to collect us like porcelain dolls or gather a fire beneath us at the stake. In death, they want to teach us about fire, thinking the fire will destroy our notions of independence. They forget that we are fire and our wombs are doorways to history.
When I think about history, as told by the writers of it, I am angry. It wasn’t until I’d long discarded the mantle of girl that I saw what liars could do to women. They hoarded my Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette, Cleopatra and the de Medicis. They made trifles of Madame de Pompadour and Diane de Poitiers. They made me believe these monster myths of women with third nipples or extra fingers (Boleyn), women who drank crushed pearls and ruined Caesars with their seductions (Cleopatra). A woman had to be a whore or fueled by the Devil, after all, to sway a powerful man. She couldn’t have done it by being smart.
Finding out the truth, I knew they’d robbed me of the lessons that my ancient sisters and mothers could have taught me. Most of written history is a lie. We are slop-swillers, gobbling it down, and growing fat with complacency, rather than acknowledging the grave injustice of it all.
Instead of beating our voices against that indignity, we sit in our reality television comas. Reality television makes us feel a little better about our lives because, merde, at least we don’t do that for a national audience. We have our hands out for freebies, clip coupons, don’t know anything about the products we buy, and never think twice about snapping at the humble waitresses, shopgirls, and customer service representatives we see.
We should be marching in protest and burning our damn uncomfortable maxi pads. We should be sharpening our minds for the job market, instead of picking out China patterns and diamonds for the marriage one. We should be seizing up our cornets and playing a rag dirty-sweet enough to keep Bolden from insanity. We should, we should, we should.
The thought that sometimes wraps a silken noose around my throat is this: what will I do to fight back and take my place amongst my heroines and teachers? What will I do to let shine my strange, female power?
I sing, I sing, I sing.
And then, I plot.
The jealous ones call us witches when we’re too powerful to be defined by or limited to their labels. Instead, they try to collect us like porcelain dolls or gather a fire beneath us at the stake. In death, they want to teach us about fire, thinking the fire will destroy our notions of independence. They forget that we are fire and our wombs are doorways to history.
When I think about history, as told by the writers of it, I am angry. It wasn’t until I’d long discarded the mantle of girl that I saw what liars could do to women. They hoarded my Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette, Cleopatra and the de Medicis. They made trifles of Madame de Pompadour and Diane de Poitiers. They made me believe these monster myths of women with third nipples or extra fingers (Boleyn), women who drank crushed pearls and ruined Caesars with their seductions (Cleopatra). A woman had to be a whore or fueled by the Devil, after all, to sway a powerful man. She couldn’t have done it by being smart.
Finding out the truth, I knew they’d robbed me of the lessons that my ancient sisters and mothers could have taught me. Most of written history is a lie. We are slop-swillers, gobbling it down, and growing fat with complacency, rather than acknowledging the grave injustice of it all.
Instead of beating our voices against that indignity, we sit in our reality television comas. Reality television makes us feel a little better about our lives because, merde, at least we don’t do that for a national audience. We have our hands out for freebies, clip coupons, don’t know anything about the products we buy, and never think twice about snapping at the humble waitresses, shopgirls, and customer service representatives we see.
We should be marching in protest and burning our damn uncomfortable maxi pads. We should be sharpening our minds for the job market, instead of picking out China patterns and diamonds for the marriage one. We should be seizing up our cornets and playing a rag dirty-sweet enough to keep Bolden from insanity. We should, we should, we should.
The thought that sometimes wraps a silken noose around my throat is this: what will I do to fight back and take my place amongst my heroines and teachers? What will I do to let shine my strange, female power?
I sing, I sing, I sing.
And then, I plot.