Cultural Norms

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with some amazing women - women who are full of creativity, intelligence, humor and strength.  When my friend, Rae, invited me to her salon, I didn't know what to expect and I honestly wasn't sure what I would be able to contribute to the entertainment - when you're sitting with actors, artists, doctors, musicians and writers, it can be a little bit daunting to share personal creations.  I chose to read some of my slam poetry, which I've never done in public before, and it worked as a kind of trial run for another reading.  One of the poems, I had worked on over the last several months, and I felt comfortable with that piece.  The other, I wrote only a day or so before the party, very much in response to not only what is in the news, but the words of women I know from all over the world, in response to current events with the Kavenaugh confirmation hearings and some of the emotions that has raised.   What surprised me in the end was the response of the men who were in attendance, as I had read my words with something like trepidation, seeing we weren't JUST women sitting together.   Instead, they were supportive and one in particular reached out later to encourage me to post this piece.

See, it doesn't matter how you side with that particular case, or whether you have personally been a victim of sexual assault - we've all been touched and shaped and influenced by this culture that says it's OK for one person to treat another like public property.  And I'm raising daughters, girls whose first words included, "no," and, later in life, I hope that I've taught them to mean it.  I know I've taught them how to break the arm of anyone who doesn't listen.  And I'm glad to teach any of  my other women friends the same - no should always mean no.  And when someone overrides that, with a touch or a word or with violence, it isn't a joke, it isn't flattery, and it's not something that can ever be taken back.

#metoo

I was raised in a sisterhood of silence.   Voices muted by cultural norms that validate boys’ desires, but

call us nasty girl names, when there’s no more blame beyond being born with no Y chromosomes and

growing breasts and growing curves, and growing long hair that gets used against us when we’re only

walking  home.  And we’re left there on the curb, in the alleys, in the backseat, on our grandma’s couch,

trying to figure out exactly where we went wrong.   #slut.  #she was asking for it.

Decades of silence, because it’s what’s expected of nice girls, who don’t make waves and

don’t make trouble, and hide our daughters in a bubble of believing that boys will be boys.

And we are just there as their toys, up to us to say no, and don’t wear that short skirt, or have

That second drink or walk home alone.  # it’s her fault.  #she didn’t say no

Watching women grow heavy in silence, and carrying baggage of shame and self-doubt, because

they didn’t know how to call some boy out, drag him on the carpet to answer for actions we

half-expected anyway, because our fathers and our brothers warned us, that’s just how men are made. 

# don’t show so much skin   #they only want one thing

One woman breaks her mute introspection to share her rejection of these ideas of female servitude to

an antiquated attitude that says we are responsible for where other hands land on our bodies. The

words that are forced into our ears, the appendages forced into our bodies, and somehow, somehow -

It’s always our fault.   And her words are met with scorn and derision, and there’s a division among even

other women, for challenging what everyone knows.   # she’s lying    #attention whore

We’re compared to animals and analogies about sports, our bodies are someone else’s wonderland and

they don’t make reservations on these resorts, but instead are breaking and entering.  And getting

all kinds of support from other boys, who slap backs in multiple cases, giving high fives when their

buddies run the bases.   And I wonder, do they make their dads proud?  Is this a legacy from generation

to generation, one more iteration of an age old tradition of domination?  # home run   

# like father, like son   #why buy the cow when you can get milk by stealing it

We owe our daughters more than a legacy of being public property, and giving out free samples

to those who flaunt their genetic prosperity, as a right to touch and taste and comment and

waste the potential of women who are more than their ass or their boobs.   We are not the weaker

sex by right of birth, and every daughter deserves to know she is worth respect.  Every person

has the right to expect that no means no.   #I said no    #me too