Taking a Stand for My Vagina
I’ll tell you about a time when a girl got her first period.
She was eight.
She hadn’t had sex-ed let alone her first kiss
She didn’t know the words menstruation, ovulation, or masturbate.
The doctor said, “Abnormal, yes, you’re fine just keep an eye out”
An eye out for what?
She didn’t know
An eye out for the stares from her classmates
As she brought a purse to the bathroom
“What’s in it? Why do you have it? We need to know.”
–
Age ten.
Sex-ed reveals the dirty secret: periods.
“Don’t be ashamed everybody gets them,”
Said the female teacher to the girls.
The boys were in another room entirely
Talking about what?
She didn’t know, perhaps their own puberty mayhem.
–
Age fourteen.
Another dirty secret: rape.
Her best friend had met this tragic fate.
“This doesn’t make sense,”
She thought when she looked up the rate:
An American is sexually assaulted every few seconds…
How many?
Ninety-eight.
–
Age 21.
Another dirty not-so-secret: the 45th President.
“I moved on her like a bitch,”
“Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Who’s her, you ask?
A pussy is who.
Entering vaginas needs no
Marriage ring or even consent to a fling.
To our President
Pussies are just for violating and grabbing.
–
January 21, 2017.
The Women’s March,
Or perhaps the largest protest in US History
That we’ve ever seen.
We demanded our rights and proclaimed our principles
Stated inequalities that need to be shifted
Where no differences should be between.
–
Despite the march’s cathartic release
There resulted anger and opposition
Not just peace.
The sea of pink Pussy hats demanded attention
And a divide among the protest
Our communication needs to increase.
–
Yes this girl I spoke of is me.
I am a white, cis heterosexual
Who fights against racism, sexism, and transmisogyny.
I know that being cis doesn’t
Give me an extra life degree
Allow me to feel superior
Or give me rights to be a bully.
Because everyone should be equal
Every shape, color, size, orientation, gender,
Every single kind of body.
–
I would be a liar, however, if I did not say
That I support the pussy hats
And I support every individual who wants their symbol
Their feminist symbol
To be a vagina.
–
McKenna and Kessler’s book,
Founding psychological gender theories,
Tells us that “Gender attribution is, for the most part, genital attribution;
And genital attribution is essentially penis attribution.”
Over one third of participants chose to remove a penis
To make a man a woman
Leaving no genitals as a solution.
These participants added a penis
In the place of a vagina
To make a woman a man.
I guess women don’t need anything to be a woman.
But men need the substitution, a penis, to be a man.
–
No, I don’t support the binary system
Genitals shouldn’t define our gender
But for me,
My vagina makes me a woman,
Makes me proud, feminine, bold, and tender.
So don’t say my pussy hat excludes you
Because I am still a feisty transgender defender.
Just know my psych major and US leader
Ask me to cling to my womanhood for me with my vagina
As it is what makes me me, and a “her.”