I'll post these notes in dining halls and bathroom stalls

When you chose how to dress this morning, who did you dress for? Where does your own personal definition of beauty spring from? Is the search through mirrors the right one? Or is it all just covered in smoke?

It seems like wherever you look there are 20 girls to everyone man, this may not necessarily be true, but media portrayals would have us believe it is. It’s not uncommon to see the blatant objectification of women when scanning the television screen. As University students it is easy to believe that we are above such crude models of behaviour. Most would scoff at the idea that such messages pervade our inner insecurities. But perhaps the message is not lost on us, perhaps we cannot escape media influence. Or maybe we just don’t want to. But that sounds ridiculous of course any intelligent woman can see these messages are ludicrous even shameful. Yet their voices, their outrage gets lost amid the screamingly absent minded laughter of the crowd of girls waiting in line to be Bikini Girls #8 in the next “Axe” body spray commercial. It is lost among the depressing sighs of the crowds of women waiting in line to get Jessica’s breasts, or Kiera Knightly’s lips. The number of women dissatisfied with there looks is no myth. The gut wrenching feeling of looking in the mirror is no imagined, and yet its never discussed. It’s not an issue I would argue that many men will tell you it doesn’t exist at all. Then why, you might ask yourself, do I starve myself? When did a good home cooked meal become “Carbohydratious” a fierce monster enemy from the planet ugly? Perhaps this is all just another phase in a long history of women being seen as objects, or images of untouchable, unimaginative and unintelligible beings. We prescribe to this stereotype in our silence and in our inability to articulate the pain and persecution that is born and thrives in a world based on superficiality. Yes, commercials are just commercials, but they are also the most intriguing source of social commentary that our generation has to offer. The implications of one man surrounded by many scantily clad women, not saying much of anything is not as irrelevant as one may choose to believe. In a world of one night stands and meaningless sexual encounters; have women come out on the bottom? In no way to I hold myself as a moral compass for women, but it remains to be seen that women still use their sexual liberation as a source of empowerment. I am not so sure that one night stand and meaningless sex, was the type of liberation 2nd wave thinking of in the 60’s. Not, certainly, if it left women feeling more used and more empty than ever. Sex, Sex appeal, Sexuality; they are powerful ideas, but they have always wielded a certain sense of misconception among women. It seems that one is never able to escape the Virgin/Whore dichotomy created in modern Western media and culture. Which am I? You may ask yourself? And you may conclude “I’m neither.” But according to whom? And again the voice of woman is lost, who is there to intelligently oppose the social norms we are all a part of creating? Why do we simply sit and watch as the situation unfolds; do you have the courage enough to comment on injustice when you see it? Does anyone? Maybe it’s too difficult as it stands to take down the system, seemingly a huge constantly churning machine. But at least we could talk to each other and have conversation beyond the normal rant about our non-conforming body parts. By simply reminding ourselves that; the title of “single” doesn’t necessarily connotate unhappiness, that beautiful cannot be categorized into rigid boxes, that woman is not an object and that femininity is without essence. It is up to woman to transcend the boundaries which confine, oppress and belittle her. Through commiseration with each other we can re-evaluate our own self worth, and rediscover ourselves and the subjects of our own lives. In control of our own existence and courageous enough to love ourselves in whatever form we choose to assume. Woman is a beautifully complex being, we have simply lost sight of this definition. Paris Hiltons Picture does not belong in the dictionary beside the word Beauty.

In a Dream

It hadn’t mattered where we were then. The exotic trees that filled the landscape seemed to slide by. I had never known before this that nostalgia could be felt for something I had never lost. My heart was occupied by ghosts from the past, and I was taken with its pulse. I was stirred. The car moved silently over pavement, and I could feel his sideways glance. His concern pressed me and emotion pushed through my fingertips and eyelids. I felt bare. In the 19 years he’d known me he had never seen me this small. I lay restful in my seat and opened my eyes to the clear summer sky. The Warm breeze swept over me, and I burst, it has seemed centuries since I had been in loves grasp, but now here in this moment I sat in absolute ache from it. I loved too much. I felt undeniable need to possess this being this unfathomable being. There was no being to possess. I exhaled torrents of emotion while pastel coloured trees inhaled overhead. Their branches held oranges in sizes such as I had never seen and reminded me that the world could fill a woman, the world could ease. Unabashedly I wept then, unaccustomed to this naked display unaccustomed to compassion, I wept, I loved. I watched a sky obstructed by views of towering trees and fruits of unnatural size which turned from liquid to solid flower. The world span by me, and I sat breathing an exhaling expanse.

magazine covers

A new song i wrote today....

Tell me your no better, i'll tell you i'm no worse,
cause i've been watching you, the way you move,
and feeling, i'm not her...
i'm not her, and it hurts.

girls we wont find soldiarity,
behind walls where we compare,
but i fear, if we stood united, in this man's world,
beside her, would he see me,
besider her....would he see me.

I AM MORE. I AM MORE. I AM MORE THEN EYES CAN SEE. I AM MORE. I AM MORE. I AM MORE THEN WHATS OUTSIDE OF ME.

Our mothers got plowed down, fighting these wars,
now in the age of magazine, we've lost soooo many more,
yeah, i can vote, but i cant eat.
and i'm tired of fighting my sisters,
to be some man's trophy!

I AM MORE....

I wanna be plowed down, fighting this war,
so my daughters will grow up, knowing they are soo much more,
i'm tired of climbing, your soical heirarchies,
of being that faceless modern woman,
just a body to please

I REFUSE. I WANT TO REFUSE. I WANT TO REFUSE. TO BE ASHAMED OF WHAT YOU SEE. I REFUSE. I WANT TO REFUSE. I WANT TO REFUSE. TO LET YOU OWN ME.

Maybe i'll end up a spinster, in a room of one's own,
or maybe i'll find a real man, if not i'll be alone,
cause i will build a life of strength, my beating heart insists,
cause thats how they entrap us, lies of lonliness.

so take your lonliness and change it, make it work for you,
focus on your life, and make all your goals reality,
find yourself a real man, i hear they exist,
and tell them to take their image.....AND SHOVE IT hahhaha

I AM MORE!!!!


This song is very ani flavoured, but i respect the shit out of that woman, so i am honoured to even try to come close.

I am tired of feeling like i need to change-when what i got, is ohhh so right lol!!

Em.

The Warmest Place on Earth

And I had always felt that in those moments his beer stained breath would be enough. Whirring dizziness would spin me a tale of triumph and affection. And in the Amber lamp post lighting we could walk hand in hand and I could ignore my icy grasp. If I could catch faint glimpses of his halo sitting at just the right angle on his kingly head, I believed together our drunken stumble would have us coming across rolls and rolls of unfinished film. Its waxy reassuring emptiness playing for movie goers everywhere. The vodka and red bull mixed just right tonight, in higher dosages than one would recommend, bode well with my heavy eyes closing just so and sticking with dry mascara. I could see his fuzzy image as perfect. His warm and biting breath whispered assuredly “quiet now, and let us dance, hand in hand in the comfort of my lonely bed, and warmth of naked cover” he fancies himself a poet, a proprietor of words, selling goods to a world of young hearts. But they fall like hail on my pounding eardrums, and I speed through the steps avoiding the formalities and formulations. Furiously descending to the warmest place on earth, shivering with cold as calloused hands handle my unwelcoming shoulders. I unbutton every part of him, and walk away deed undone. I’ll sleep alone tonight. I will walk home alone tonight, a little warmer for my own company. Hoping to meet a lowly beggar man who dances wild I the night, he alone could ease this worried walk. I have lost all bounce in my step but I’ll walk for miles and I won’t sleep for days. Play track 7 repeat. As Halloween horror clouds whip past in the silent night and sickly looking branches sway about me roaring with a million tiny voices, I’m careful to swim in pools of light. My breathing fills me with the screaming of the trees and my moccasin feet pitter pat on a tired cement surface, flat with footsteps of a million tiny feet. All the while in my head I run through my ritual of fear, as each wind chime becomes a sign of certain death. I walk through in unfocused reverie this evening in a world spinning much to fast. At last. At last my quiet street sits before me in perfect symmetry, streamlined and square. Each little castle guarded by fierce hedges with sharp edges of care and too much time. This stillness can’t help but hit me too suddenly for its grandiose appearance is unaware of my damaging presence. My body never stills in this spinning expanse. As the world rages and tears about me I’m swayed by the still and drink. The view from my front landing, if I close my eyes just so, and mix my drinks just right, conjures dreams of something more. He was perfectly symmetrical, but without the smoothness of this place. He was a stiff drink which stung and bubbled as we moved hard and fast. He created my lonely ascent tonight and made it easy to do. My cloudy white covers slide over my bare heaving breathes, ragged and shivering I am made small by a world of magnanimous size. My room spins just fast enough to create a whirlwind dream, my covers crinkle in my grip had they always been this soft and feather light? I grasp at flower petals, fragrant like summer days the ones I had let myself alone, unaware that I’d ached.
Sharon

where do we begin?

And so I begin to wonder, how does one go about transforming this stigmas, this superficial reality, that really, doesn’t represent reality at all. Reality? Hmm.. It then becomes a search for what the reality of a woman is? Has woman, in all of her capabilities, complexities, beauties, ever REALLY STOOD in the reality of what it means to be that sex? There are some. They are heroic. The time has now come for this generation to produce woman who go against the assigned grain. To kick and scream for her right to look how SHE wants, to say how she feels, to experience joy on her terms and with those that she loves. This is not such an easy task.

Currently, as I am sitting in a computer lab in my favourite dress, my hair done well, a warm scarf around my neck…I wonder…who is looking? Who is noticing? Who will confirm to me that I look as beautiful as I perceieved this morning when I did my final check in the mirror.

How do i come to debrainwash my mind? A revolution of my paradigm?

Remeber that little girl you once were? I used to run around butt naked with my little belly hangin out, or got dress up really pretty for church on a sunday, and i knew it! lol.

What happened to our adventures? the story tale lives we wanted to live. I know i am not living it. I would never have imagined such hardships, such struggles, such intense insecurities, all over boys, and all over, being in competition with others...

We are fighting because each and everyone of us is terrified of being alone. We have equated not having a man in our lives to an enitrely false assertion that we are ugly, or fat, or too loud, or too quite, or too too too too too!

we have to begin here. With these false assertions that have been given to us from the outside, from the media, from some people who are just inherently just kinda mean....there are lies that we have accepted as fundamental truths in our lives, and we have built our structures upon them...


but my friends, we are on shaky ground...

Melissa

womanwithoutaface

I am a woman without a face, and without a name, I am hair and body and features, but I have no mouth with which to speak and no eyes with which to see. Man has taken my mouth, and woman has taken my eyes.

I was feeling rather morose today when I decided that the female race is in a state of decay. Perhaps that isn’t true, there are many beautiful women who exist intelligently aware of their surroundings. However many, and this number seems to be growing, seem content to compete with each other and to hide themselves from the emotion, passion and beauty that all woman possess. Instead they use these features, as a means to an end, we are no longer creatures who possess these qualities unto ourselves. Instead woman has given them to others to consume and destroy. Yet we cannot openly relate to each other, we cannot stand naked before one another and display our wounds, in fear we will be seen as weak, and get eaten by the wolves. But the truth of the matter is, when you pass that girl on the bridge and your eyes meet, she probably feels your pain, and in that moment you are sisters, but this is a phenomenon most choose to ignore.

We are faces that do not talk; to each other or to men. Often women are simply content to be hair and make up and a body that goes to the gym 6 days a week. We are constantly in a state of theatrics. For what purpose? University is so unique in the fact that it is one of the few public arenas that gives you the time and the space for free speech. Yet women are almost entirely voiceless on campus. When we ask a friend ‘how are you today’ we don’t expect any sort of honest response. Perhaps this is currently the condition of humanity at large. Yet I find an ever increasing emphasis on the importance of the surface level of woman. And this emphasis does not just come from men. Women have begun to alienate one another. Dominated by our own everyday trivialities, we could be sitting beside some one who is simultaneously a stranger and our best friend. Because some where along the way, we have forgotten how to reach out to one another, and truly examine the beautiful people we have become. And if all we are, is shape, and clothes. What happens when that is taken away? Whether it is media, or simply peer pressure, society has created a standard which is both empty, and near impossible to achieve. We hold ourselves to expectations that have nothing to do with leading fulfilling and happy lives. It is always about this calorie and that, but at the end of the day, when a woman walks into a room, and every man’s head turns, she probably just wishes some one would stop and ask her how she’s feeling today. But nobody asks. Those who don’t fit this new standard of beauty feel invisible, and those who do, are faces without mouths. Why should any woman be content to play this role, in spaces of free speech and free thought woman are all trapped in the bathroom mirrors. Nervously glancing around at one another constantly comparing, but we all become mirror images. When you see that other woman on the bridge her eyes are mirrors of the insecurity and loneliness you may often feel. Because it is truly lonely to be a woman in a world where beauty is only visible on surface levels, and we are forced to hide behind its calculated standards. Because the truth is, we forget to ask, what are your dreams? We cannot stand naked before each other simply as woman, we cannot ask, how did we get here? Why are so many people sad about their bodies? Where have our goddesses gone?

It’s true, that the objectification and oppression of woman is not a new phenomenon. What is different about the contemporary woman is that she has the world at her doorstep. Free and equal opportunity to education, to enter the work force, and most importantly be respected and valued for things separate from her sexuality. Woman has the power to transcend the state of being the “other” the object; she can become the subject of her life. Yet so many women still feel as if sexuality is limited to a very specific appearance and that it is their most important asset. Even the most intelligent women have trouble separating themselves from their appearance, and wear their sexuality as one wears clothes. People want to be viewed as so much more than an image, yet there lies this divide. Woman everywhere are terrified to let go of their sexuality, afraid that when that sexuality is lost, they will be too. So long have woman lived with the stigma that they are inferior, that their importance is surface level. Now more than ever there is a need for every woman to transcend this oppressive feeling. Women are unique in the emotion and beauty they possess, it is with this passion in mind that they need to cast off the clothes that keep them in hiding. Sexuality can play second fiddle to the greatness that every woman has the ability to achieve. It is terrifying to think that behind the clothes and the make up and the sexuality we are just people, just the decisions we make, and the way we affect the world. Terrifying yes, but beautiful. And without the cover of sexuality we are forced to actively join the aching humanity we are surrounded by. It is our job to give each other back our eyes. We have to stop seeing ourselves as the enemy, stop seeing the emotion and passion that is unique to us as a burden but rather a guiding force in harnessing the sisterhood we belong to.

sharon