My Short Skirt

I have not posted for a couple of days now...I've been really busy.
Yesterday I partecipated in a race. To my defense, I didn't arrive last. Just second last. It took me a full hour to run that thing...I should at least have gotten a prize for the effort!
But after all, I did manage to reach my goal: losing four periods of school. Yay!

Anyway, you should totally have a look at this poem from the vagina monologues. It's amazing. I found out about it on theF-bomb.

       My Short Skirt  by Eve Ensler

It is not an invitation


a provocation

an indication

that I want it

or give it

or that I hook.



My short skirt

is not begging for it

it does not want you

to rip it off me

or pull it down.



My short skirt

is not a legal reason

for raping me

although it has been before

it will not hold up

in the new court.



My short skirt, believe it or not

has nothing to do with you.



My short skirt

is about discovering

the power of my lower calves

about cool autumn air traveling

up my inner thighs

about allowing everything I see

or pass or feel to live inside.



My short skirt is not proof

that I am stupid

or undecided

or a malleable little girl.



My short skirt is my defiance

I will not let you make me afraid

My short skirt is not showing off

this is who I am

before you made me cover it

or tone it down.

Get used to it.



My short skirt is happiness

I can feel myself on the ground.

I am here. I am hot.



My short skirt is a liberation

flag in the women's army

I declare these streets, any streets

my vagina's country.



My short skirt

is turquoise water

with swimming colored fish

a summer festival

in the starry dark

a bird calling

a train arriving in a foreign town

my short skirt is a wild spin

a full breath

a tango dip

my short skirt is

initiation

appreciation

excitation.



But mainly my short skirt

and everything under it

is Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

The Hairy Legs Dilemma

Cross-posted from The F-Bomb

Today I'm loaded with homework so I'll just share this article of mine (smiles proudly) which has been published on the F-bomb.

The Hairy Legs Dilemma

I am a very hairy person.

I’m okay with that, for the most part, but it seems the rest of the world isn’t.

I turn on tv (or the computer, or a magazine) and am immediately faced with an ad for an (incredibly painful) device that promises to give you sensual smooth skin, that will last for a whole five days!


The thought of shaving every five fucking days gives me shivers. My skin happens to be very sensitive. It does not enjoy being pulled from every pore. In fact, every time I shave I am bought to near tears by the piercing pain I feel. Nonetheless I do it. I purposefully hurt myself to change my natural body and fit the stereotype of what a girl is that society imposes on me. Why?

Patriarchy. Because of that fucking patriarchy.

If I tell people that though, they’ll just shrug and say, yeah, just don’t shave then.

Easy to say.

My hair is dark. It is black and very visible. If I go to the beach with my natural legs, I shall attract many weird disgusted looks and disturbing cat-calls. My friends and family will try in every way to convince me to shave that fucking hair, to avoid them the embrassement of being seen in company of such a freak. Some of my friends will, in fact, stop hanging out with me at the beach. They will not want to be put in the same category as me!

As to my love life, it would be even more null than it already is.

Those are the conseqences of a non-shaving demanour. And the truth is, I can’t. I can’t just sacrifice whatever is left of my social life (being a foreigner, a feminist, and mostly a non conformist, I am not at the highest place popularity-wise).

I’m not strong enough.

Since I joined the feminist movement, I shave less often, but I still shave. My legs are within acceptable limits of hairiness. The rest of my body I keep hairy, since it’s not too bad, even though occasionally I get causal male oglers comment on my growing moustache (if they think I am going to hurt even my face-something that I’ve tried and has resulted in lots of little red baubles all around my mouth- for their pleasure, I can only tell them to please get lost.) Everyone is happy. Except me.

It’s just so unfair that guys can grow a beard of hair on their legs, and I, because I am a girl, have to be hairless. Whoever decided that hairiness was a boy thing anyway?

I am trying to gradually decrease my shaving until I am strong enough to face the social pressures hairy legs bring with them.

Until then, I shall continue spending an hour or so torturing myself every month. Or maybe I should just dedicate myself to masochism for the sake of it. At least that is supposed to bring on some enjoyement. Also, I would know that I would be doing it for myself, and not for others. I would not feel as weak and guilty and so fucking angry as I feel now.