Stereotyped, Labelled, Abused | Women & Patriarchy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub7kn7Jz9KM

For the women that have overcome the many challenges everyday life throws at them, for the women that have broken the shackles of misogyny and patriarchy and are emerging victoriously.

Our eyes are gouged,

your conscience - stripped.

We're meant to remain silent

in violence and conflict.

Misogyny seeps like oil into the sea

Polluting minds,

corrupting society.

I am a woman

only when I pretend to be blind

When reality glares

But I choose not to see.

I am a woman

When history's vilest times repeat

When cows are nurtured

While my sisters are stripped

and beaten under a tree.

I am a woman

when I can soothe your fears

Of my power to take on the world.

When you can twist my body

Make me believe I am weak

As you lurk in the dark

Worried if you won't be my need

So you pretend to nurture

idolise the masks you've given me.

Call yourself a lover,

A man with culture.

The head of society.

When I raise my voice

When I reach the pinnacle

You call out misandry

You call me bossy.

I become slutty

Deserving to be ostracised by society.

And when these labels don't bother me.

You cut my tongue off my body.

You gouge my eyes.

You break my limbs

My neck, you tie.

In hope that my sisters will pretend to be blind

To be that woman you need.

But I am not that woman.

I am the stars in the sky,

Combusting and growing.

I am the strength in the winds

That wrecks cities.

I am the tornado in the ocean

Gentle from afar,

You don't want to come close

You can't handle my power.

I am everything you can't contain

A storm that's brewing

And will no longer put up with the pain

I am not the woman

Your needy self begs to control

Hoping and praying the torture and pain

Makes me your slave

I am the woman my ancestors fought to be

My sisters died to see this version of me.

I am not the vagina you desperately reduce me to

I am the womb

that gives life

Just as your mothers did to you.

I am not that woman you created in your mind

Like children playing games

Like madmen that weren't admitted on time.

I am the woman that creates

Not with my womb

But my might.

Call me what you please

The woman that's a disease

That woman that brings the plague

The woman that summons the demons.

The witch.

The bitch.

The many labels you brand me with.

And I'll still be here smiling

As the woman that I am.

The woman that you fear.

~Sarah Thomas