written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Friday 2 October 2015

Have you earned yours?

Society. We're a funny bunch aren't we?! Making rules about what is acceptable and what isn't. When it comes to laws that's fine ... we need them to structure our society with what is right and wrong, but dictating what a person should look like?  No. We are surrounded by images every day of super thin and airbrushed models dictating silently that we should aspire to be like them. Plastic looking, with trowelled on make-up, plumped lips, perky bosoms, tan, hair extensions, false nails and lashes, threaded eyebrows impossible high and thin. Collagen, botox, teeth whitening, fake tanning (if they're sensible), plastic surgery, implants, waxed to beyond an inch of their lives. They are the ideal, the look to be achieved.

Anything less, well .... Why though? Tell me why I should even try and look like a blow-up doll! I'd much rather look like me thanks! But that's what it's all about isn't it? Looking "good" for the opposite sex. Those magazines which began this perpetuation of how a woman should look were started by men for men. I fully appreciate that I sound a complete feminist at the moment, revelling in my rights to vote or burn my bra if I so wish, but that is not what I am trying to portray. That is not me. Yes, I enjoy the freedoms that this era, this country brings and I appreciate them wholeheartedly. But what I am truly saying is this .... we are each individual. It would be an impossibility for all women to try and look like that and frankly, why would they want to? So, I embrace all that I am. I take pride in my curves and rolls. I accept that not all men are alike. I know that in my heart (and outside too) I am beautiful in my own way. I am me ... and I'm ok with that!


Stripes earned ... not bought:

I wear my map of life
in glorious 3D and technicolour.
Each traceable blue vein,
laughter or frown line,
silver stretch mark or 
wiry white hair ...
they plot the paths
I have taken thus far.
Every mole and freckle,
dimple and pock,
fat pocket and scar,
symbolise each rise and fall,
high and all time low,
mountain and trough,
that this wonderful,
marvellous body
has endured.
I earned my tiger stripes
and I wear them
with goddamn pride ...
they are ME!!


Thanks for reading! ;-) x

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Don't buy into feminist shaming Looby, it's misappropriated. No woman should be ashamed to identify as a feminist. It's not bra burning and man-hating, it's self respect. This is a feminist poem and I like it :)

Unknown said...

I'm not feminist shaming Linz. The point I was trying to get across is that we are all different. I admit it isn't perhaps worded in the best way to get that across. I just refuse to try and tick boxes for other people is all. It's a crying shame that there are too few people who are just willing to accept a person for who they are. That goes for women too, which is why I don't class it as a feminist poem, only the self respect aspect. ;-)