A spoken-word poem-rant to start your Friday fire

We live in a society where we are conditioned to hate ourselves.  We live in a society where girls as young as 5 believe that they need to be on a diet.  Our society tells us that we are only as good as our looks, and if we do not fit the mold that they have made for us, we should starve, and cut, and shame, and maim ourselves until we do.

Because every headline on the covers of our glossy magazines is some derivative of how to look or be thinner, prettier, more pleasing to the male gaze.  Because nearly every woman in our society hates what we call “swimsuit season”.  Because the media and businesses have created a whole season during which it is their duty to remind us that no matter what we do, we still fall short of the “ideal beauty”.  We can always be thinner, more tanned, more toned, and less ourselves.

In our society, it is seen as an act of bravery if we reject the patriarchal beauty standards and dare to love ourselves.  As a woman, when I stand up and say “I love my short, fat, bisexual body, just as it is” it is an act of revolution.  As a woman, when I say “I am sick of you preying on my self-esteem in order to sell me more of your shit!” it is anarchy.  As a woman, when I express opinions and attitudes that differentiate me from a doormat, I am called a “feminazi”.  As if somehow having my own thoughts, ideas, and opinions is in any way similar to the genocide of an entire people whose only crime was that they were different.  Because when a woman runs for political office in our country, more attention is paid to her pantsuits than to her politics.

And the saddest part of all of this is that we, as a people, have been so conditioned, so brainwashed, that we do not even realize the amount of bullshit that is being shoved down our throats each and every day.  We have been taught from birth that there are certain measurements that we all must meet, and if we do not, we are failures.  If the numbers of our toes, our height, our weight, our test scores, our incomes, our skin color, and where we fall on the Kinsey Scale does not meet some arbitrary number on the chart, that we are less than.  We are less than perfect, less than ideal, and we, the deviants, are less than human.  Because we have been so indoctrinated to the “right” way to be, and so utterly ripped to shreds by a society that believes we are not worthy.  We are not worthy to be ourselves.  We are not worthy to be happy.  We are not worthy to speak out against the injustices committed against us.  We are not worthy to exist on the same planet as those who would prefer to shame us, degrade us, and hate us, rather than accept the beauty of true diversity.

This, all of this, the hurt, the pain, the shame…they are all bullshit.  They are nothing but a sedative fed to every single minority within our society so that we will be compliant and easy to control.

I, for one, am done.  I reject your ideals, I reject your hatred, I reject your attempts to shame, maim, defame, and tame us to your broken and outdated ideals.  You cannot and will not own my body, my mind, or my soul.

And I am not alone.  I am one of many.  And we are starting a fire within our souls that will burn so white-hot, that all of your old, white, straight, cisgender, Christian, patriarchal ideals will go up in flames.  I hope you are ready.