Women's Writes - Works

Women's Writes

Well-behaved women seldom make history.
— Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Posts in Women's History Month
Day 22

You probably heard all your life…sticks and stones, and all that nonsense. Don’t believe it. Words hurt. Pain hurts. Words designed to elicit pain are going to hurt, and it isn’t weakness, it isn’t letting them hurt you. That is an excuse designed to put the onus for your pain back on you. I didn’t let them hurt me; I had little choice. Could I have been tougher? Could I have let it flow off my back? No, I don’t think I could. I didn’t have the strength of knowing I was loved, knowing I was valued, knowing I had a support system. Some women have that, and are able to do it. They shouldn’t have to.

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Day 21

Tonight’s poem comes from a Mondegreen. If you don’t know what a Mondegreen is, it refers to the misheard lyrics of a song, you know, like Round John Virgin. I don’t remember what the song was, or who the singer, or even what the real line was. Whatever it was, I misheard it as “Misogyny paved the way”. So tonight, a poem based on a line I didn’t hear right.

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Day 20

The truck smelled like cattle. Alicia recognized it; they had stolen…commandeered, she supposed they would say…Ben’s truck. Her husband was in the barn when the first bomb dropped. He yelled for her to take the women to safety. She hadn’t heard from him since. She gathered the women around her, which wasn’t difficult with them tied together. She spoke quietly, trying to calm them. It was difficult when she wasn’t calm herself. She reminded them of the heritage of bravery they got from their mothers and grandmothers, women who never let the men see them cry. They lived through many wars; the small country had been invaded from all sides. Two neighboring countries were fighting over control; the citizens who lived there had no say. It would be decided by who had the biggest guns, the most bombs.

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Day 16

I read. A lot. Some of the books I read are feminist books, and I’ve noticed something, especially among the younger feminists. There is a tendency to say that no woman should have to be perfectly feminist all the time; she can make some choices that are not, in fact, feminist, some choices that might even be stereotypes of what a woman is. I agree. I have noticed another thing, however. They are always willing to carve out an exception for whatever it is they like…lipstick, high heels, perfume…but they are quick to condemn other women’s choices of where they prefer to be, shall we say, traditional?

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Day 15

“No. And neither are you. I’ve worked here ten years, I do not know what is behind that door. If you try to open it again, you will no longer volunteer here.” Jocelyn tried to soften up her words. She understood what the girl was feeling; curiosity was a strong emotion, and she felt it many times. The only time she tried to go in, she was written up with a warning that transgressions were grounds for termination. “What’s your name?” She wanted to make the girl feel at home.

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Day 10

So, what do I think I would have done if I had the proper environment for me? Sailing a boat across the Atlantic to visit Europe. A small boat, just one or two of us (I really didn’t think I would get married, so my childhood dreams tended to include just me). Skydive. Hang glide. Climb a mountain. Visit every continent. Maybe I would have been a hippie; I was in the right generation for it. Maybe I would have learned to dance, not ballroom dancing, but the fast dances. Maybe I would have been a feminist from early on instead of waiting until I was an adult to become involved.

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Day 9

“Because doing chores is good for you.” Nicole dismissed them; they could fight over the computer all night, and she wouldn’t care. She would stay in the kitchen and wouldn’t hear their fighting or Devin’s snoring as he slept in front of the TV. She washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. The dryer beeped, telling her the laundry was ready, so she hauled it out of the dryer, folded it, and carried it upstairs to put away. Off her feet…yeah. Devin was off his feet, the recliner all the way back, the remote clutched in his left hand, about to drop on the floor. The kids were off their feet, sitting cross-legged in front of the computer, an old used model that led to constant arguments with her about why they couldn’t have a better computer.

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Day 7

Today, I have a poem. It’s short, but if it says what I want to say, it doesn’t need to be long. For this poem, though, you need to have some insight. If you are unfamiliar with what happens to women during a war, there are plenty of sites out there to help you. The war in Ukraine has been weighing on my mind, and from stories I hear, it sounds like this is like every other war…the women are a tool of war, a prize of war, and an opportunity for warriors. One can wish we had progressed beyond this, but it seems we never do.

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Day 6

One of the plays about me concluded that the most important thing I did was have my daughter, the one who married a Frenchman and history doesn’t even remember. She made up a whole life…and a line of descent…for my daughter, then had her descendent act as a surrogate for a couple of rich folks who couldn’t have a baby, so my most important accomplishment…was having the daughter who supposedly had a child who had a child who…well, you get the picture.

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Day 5

Today, a poem. I challenged myself to get words from a random word generator and work them into a poem. I’ve never done a poem based on random words, so I wanted to try. The result is, like many of my random word experiments, a little different. But it does say what I want it to say; at least, I think it does.

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Day 2

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, right? She married early and was pregnant at nineteen. Oliver was only a year old when she got pregnant again…Sophie came along, a darling but a lot more work. Then…Caleb walked out. No reason, no explanation, just a note saying “I’m gone.” Child Welfare hadn’t been able to find him, so no child support. She was still officially married to a man she hadn’t seen in eighteen months. Rumor had it he moved to Australia. She couldn’t track him down. She didn’t have any money.

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