I am a feminist

I am a feminist because I believe in gender equality

My long and short of it, this is

I am clear it is clear

***
Removed from the cluttering chatters and detractive dialogue about bitterness, men-hating, lipstick, sluts, ice-queens, whores, ladies, petticoats, bitter, better

I am clear

It is clear

I am a feminist

I believe in gender equality

***
I deserve as much a place in this world as someone born with a penis, does

The place denied to me

therefore

I am a feminist

I must be a feminist;

– part of the movement

– a contributor

– a driver

– an advocate

contributor driver advocate

***
My voice should be heard, even without a prominent Adam’s apple

My ideas deserve attention

They are brilliant

I am brilliant

I am not a ball of emotions

I am a thinker

Logical

Analytical too

because my brain is actually not smaller than a man’s

….contrary to what you may have heard

Contrary to what you may have been taught

Contrary to what you may have been raised with

***
I am a feminist because it is the only way that I can be a woman in a world where my vagina is a curse

Where I have been raped

Will be raped

Will be cackled

Where I have children I didn’t choose to have…

choices made for me

….children who respect me less than their father; my endeavours duty, their father’s a gift; mine expected, his cherished

– belittled

– diminished

– unappreciated

…diseases I do not deserve

Fluids forced…

I’m in a world where I am an ice-queen if I choose to not sleep with Paul

A whore if I do sleep with Paul

Much worse if I sleep with Paul…. and maybe George

That is the world where I exist, with space to me denied

Squeezed into stripping boxes marked

‘bitter’

‘angry’

‘PMS’

‘emotional’

Shelved where I am hurt not heard; singed not seen

therefore

I am a feminist

***
I have no interest in hating men

I love them, in fact

I love the way (that) they smell:

musky

musk concealed by cologne

musky cologne concealing musk

I like to taste them, many parts of them

I like the way that they feel

Or not feel

Or try to not feel

And more importantly the way they feel to the touch

my touch

I also like the way that they touch

touch me

…boldly intrusive

***
I am a feminist because I believe in gender equality

I have no interest in dictating to women what shade of lipstick is more natural

More classy

Less… slutty

My shade of choice is red

rouge choice

And the only lips nude are those of the nude

***
I have no interest in telling women what to be

How to live love stride strive strut

I do not shame

Equality means being able to determine yourself

be yourself

to choose

to be the self you choose to be

***
I have even less interest in bitterness

In bitter

I am sunshine

radiant

radiance

***
I am a feminist

I must be

I need to be

because every day, my world finds a new way of diminishing me

a new chorus of hate

and sadly, some of my sisters sing lead:

My vagina is tighter than your vagina

 

Writer: Nomfundo Shezi