You publicly shame us if we put our cleavage on display, but “a woman who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10,” and don’t forget the Victoria’s secret show is the red-blooded American male’s annually nationally broadcast wet dream. Forget the fact that you owned competitions built upon the objectification of women, and and never mind the pedophilic objectification of the young women in the dressing rooms you so proudly paraded through, where you wish for “the bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher.” And god forbid these magnificent breasts serve their biologically intended purpose, feeding the offspring you so desperately want to force us into conceiving if we aren’t as abstinent as you deem fit. Keep that aspirin between your knees, anything less and you asked for it. But even when we didn’t, even when the situation is irrefutably, undeniably rape, men, wait, monsters like Brock Turner walk free, and we get to watch documentaries like Audrie and Daisy.
You say you can grab us by the pussy, but you mean as long as it’s not that time of the month, then you wouldn’t touch us with a 10-ft pole, us ‘bleeding, wherever.’ But I must ask, why are you so disgusted by the miracle made real in my flesh? My body masters feats of god! You may be pro-life, but I am the giver of it, without me you can bore nothing. In your egotist focus of how man may have made God, do not forget, we made you, we cultivated the life within you and chose to partake, our god given right to our own bodily autonomy. Is my life so worth protecting before my first breath of air, but then deemed worthless upon realization of my genitalia? Being born with a penis does not with it inherent a fatherly expectation and disrespect to a decision to decline; why then, does a uterus so accompany a woman? Have I not known myself long enough to determine whether or not I so choose to become a parent? Motherhood is not my middle name, it was not automatically written into my DNA, and your presumptuous ways of “you’ll change your mind when you’re older” as though I would think on this like whether to accept an undesired invitation on a date. Faced with this daily reminder of your stereotypic expectations, you don’t think I’ve given adequate time to whether or not your gaslighting might be right, what might make me change my mind? How could you possibly know me better than myself, is there something in here that I don’t understand? For years I tried to puzzle out your source of superior knowledge, half-afraid you might be right and I was inevitably fighting an invisible truth I could not find within myself.
But it’s been the better part of a decade, and quite simply nothing has changed, not moved an inch, not a single budge. Adamant as ever am I in my conviction to be whatever it is I choose to be, which subsequently does not and never will include the term “mother.” And more power to the women who do, who must feel invalidated as well by someone assuming they are fulfilling their biological role rather than a personal and heartfelt desire to bring a beautiful baby into this world. Interesting how quickly you forget her role too, as soon as that baby is born from that womb, she ceases to be your central focus, her reason for existence completed in your ignorant eyes. To the background she goes, cooking and cleaning, taking care of the children, while probably working full or part time, maybe even 2 jobs all while listening to you whine about your inconsequential 9-5.
Never mind the fact that those jobs are at a discount rate, 70 cents to your manly dollar, but forgive my lack of willingness to comply in your sexual harassment while you float right through my glass ceiling. Hillary knows the feeling all too well, the embodiment of a woman at the top of her field still competing against a less (not) qualified candidate for the same job, and being passed over for her ‘raging hormones’ (when anyone with a basic education in human biology knows ‘raging hormones’ ends when women gracefully enter menopause, you know, right around the time you get your insurance-funded Viagra). Combined with your condom pandemonium at any health facility or college campus, keep hypocritically insisting I pay for my birth control out of pocket, your ability to get it up clearly trumps my ability to safely allow us to both enjoy it. Don’t dare complain about the friendzone when you cock block yourselves in your relentless desire to control women’s sexuality.
We are not madonnas, or whores, virgins or sluts, or whatever the fuck you want to try to deem (your manic-pixie-dream-girl, porn-star, girl-next-door, damsel-in-distress, school-girl wet dreams). We are quite simply human beings, nothing more and nothing less, but certainly not the lesser sex (nor is anyone on the spectrum in between). And let me not forget the women who are marginalized in different ways, my native ladies, all the fabulous black girl magic, my disabled gals, the wonderfully rainbow-eqsue lgbt, my trans is beautiful children, fetishized asian women, my Jewish gals, my coachella-appropriated-my-culture girls, my Muslim sisters, my latina ladies, my women of color who experience all of this and more, or in different ways, the same stereotypic assumptions, violations, degradations.
We deserve better, and you have no excuse for not knowing our bodies are not inherent invitations, our sexuality is our own to claim, our desires not something to be shamed. We will not be blamed when you try to make us victims, whether miniskirts or sweatshirts the excuse is the same: unacceptable, inconceivable, irrefutably obscene. You alone are the perpetrator; I will not become the scapegoat in your sexual assault and rapist games, you will not sully my name, you alone are the one who responsibility should claim. Whether I was drunk or asleep, kissed you or gave you a wink, my lack of resistance is not acceptance or any form of real consent, so stop trying to get us into bed with another drink, 2, 3, 4, floor. Are you so ugly, undesirable, monstrous that this is the only way you can sleep with me? Are you Quasimodo or an Opera Phantom to grizzly to bear witness to, or your character so repulsive the thought of your touch twists my insides? Don’t you see if this is the source of your desperation, perhaps you should look within instead of searching for the answers between my thighs?
You think you can defeat us, you think we will ‘learn our place’ but the truth is you can’t accept yours, which does not alone stand taller than the rest. We are not your inferiors, content to build the stepping stones of your castle of superiority, and we are done building you up to tear us down. You can try to take Roe V. Wade, our Planned Parenthood, our ACA, our welfare and childcare and reproductive rights, but you best reevaluate if you think we will go silently into the night.
You forget, we can grab you by the balls too, and yours are far more sensitive to my tightly clenching fists, sharpened nails ready to flex.