9 Things I Would Like To Tell To Every Teenage Girl
Olivia Newton-Evans
One: The world is trying to kill you.
It is trying to do this by stealing your voice.
Kill it back.
Two: You are the best thing in every room.
You will notice I did not say the prettiest thing in every room,
you are also the prettiest thing in every room,
but that shit doesn’t matter,
that shit is the world trying to kill you.
Three: You will never completely kill the idea
that your body is the most important thing about you.
That shit is everywhere.
If you are alive and hearing me say these words
then you have already heard them too many times,
that said.
Four: the best hairstyle
is one that helps you get out of bed in the morning.
The best brand of makeup
is one that sharpens a knife for you.
The best brand of denim
is one that fits,
and goes with your combat boots.
Note: that high heels
make perfectly acceptable combat boots,
converse,
make excellent combat boots,
and yes,
combat boots
are superlative combat boots.
Five: wear
whatever you want
look
however you want
you know who can fuck themselves if they don’t like it ?
EVERYONE
Six: you remember that metaphor about
killing you being stealing your voice ?
sometimes,
the world will actually try to kill you.
you’ll never deserve it,
telling you to be ready
is pointless,
telling you to be prepared
is just another way to blame you when it happens
which is why,
Seven: You need to hold up your sisters.
Eight: EVERYONE IS YOUR SISTER.
The girl with the jacked up teeth
and the drift store jeans
IS YOUR SISTER.
the girl who fucks girls,
IS YOUR SISTER.
The girl who used to be called Jake
but is now called Jane,
IS YOUR SISTER
The cheerleaders who are
trying so hard to kill you,
are still YOUR SISTERS.
The word is trying to
kill each and everyone of you
and if you do not hold yourselves up,
no one else will.
Nine: someday,
someone is going to call you a woman.
It’s gonna be the most terrifying thing to think about yourself,
but recognize it,
for the medal of honor that it is.
It means that everything that has tried to kill you
has failed.
I’m so sorry
I should’ve called you all
Women
at the beginning of this poem./////
girls mature
faster
than boys
because
we are taught
all the ways
our bodies are
bait
for violence
how our lips are
dripping with
seduction
how our thighs are
rancid with
sin
how our blooming
curves
are traps for the
eyes and hands
of grown men
we are taught this
lesson:
how our bodies
betray us
in the presence
of men
we are taught this
at the soft age of
five, six, seven
many a times these
lessons
are forced
upon us
while boys just got to be
boys.
- ena ganguly////////
Because when I was 13 years old, I was sent home for my tank top straps being a little too thin, but a boy could wear a Cool Story babe, Go Make Me A Sandwich shirt and not be looked at twice.
Because when I was 17 I told a guy “No” and the next day the word tease was painted on my locker.
Because when I was 18 and just wanted to be friends, I was a prude.
Because I feel the need to say “I have a boyfriend” instead of “No” because guys respect other men more than they would ever respect me.
Because society screams “Don’t get raped” instead of “don’t rape”
Because I was scared to walk alone at 10 PM.
Because being beautiful is the most important thing I’ll ever do.
Because when I’m wearing my favorite skirt “I’m asking for it”
Because no means no no matter how you spin it
Because a girl was drugged and raped with a beer bottle, and the boys who did it are out on bail.
Because I owe you nothing
Because pepper spray is a gift I receive yearly.
Because I am asked if I have a boyfriend more than I am asked about my mental health.
Because my clothes say more about my consent than my mouth does.
Because the wage gap exists
Because “not all men are like that” is said way too often.
ENOUGH ARE
Because I feel the need to say “I’m not a feminist but…”
Because I’m writing this piece.
- When you ask why I’m angry?/////////
a secret code between women: are you safe? in a contact of eyes. i’m here if you need me, the littlest shift of a skirt, of an inclined head, of watching the man who is asking you to smile, bitch. you aren’t alone on the walls of restrooms, i was where you are too. the quiet doling of emergency numbers, the shelters. the space between two women in a largely empty train station. the waiting game of two women strangers who walk, quietly and quickly, to their cars in abandoned parking lots, who watch to be sure the other leaves safely. text me you get home safe. the tally marks of drinks on hidden wrists, carefully disguised as other things ever since men picked up on what it meant and used it to target the “weakest link.”
my father tells me we have nothing to worry about. last night he sent me one of those email chains that say at the top “Safety Tips For The Women In Your Life!!!! Don’t Let Her Die!!”
me, and the stranger on the train. she is asleep and the man is asking me who i am going home to. i feel tears pricking the sides of my eyes. i am 13 while he towers over me. he reaches out one hand, and while i don’t know how she knows, she speaks up without opening her eyes: “If you touch my daughter, sir, I will murder you.” Whatever he grumbles is lost in history, because this moment I am so grateful for the existence of other people that I cannot breathe.
I am 19 and on my phone when i become aware of a 13 year old girl is smiling nervously at a man who’s saying disgusting things. I grab her arm. “There you are, cindy,” I say, and then look at the man like he is bile. “Do you need something from my sister?” i ask, and i walk away with her. she cries later.
this is the way of things: a silent, secret web. our promise to each other that despite our differences, when it comes to the wire, we become family, instantly. the unspoken promise. i’m here. i’m watching. i’ll witness./////////
When I was 13 years old and curious about sex and love, I asked my mom if she had had sex before marrying my father (of whom she is still married to, and has been since before I was born). She said that that wasn’t really a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. I said ‘sure it is, you’ve either had sex before him, or you haven’t’. She brought me onto the couch and sat me down and told me about the boy she liked when she was young and how one night she snuck into his house while his parents were gone and they were kissing and he said they should have sex and she said that she wanted to save sex for marriage and he laughed and basically took all her clothes off and he raped her and as my mom was telling the story she cried and this was the second time I had ever seen my mom cry. She was 12 when it happened.
In grade 8 I got a call from my friend in the middle of the night and she was drunk in the park crying and told me that she went out that night with some other friends and they drank a little and her guy “friend” starting flirting and yes she laughed at first but then he tried to pull her shirt over her head and she pulled away and he ripped her shirt and it was her favourite shirt and then he pushed her to her knees and HIS BEST FRIEND HELD HER JAW OPEN WHILE HE FACE FUCKED HER. And so I went to the park and picked her up and took her home and slept in her bed with her except we didn’t sleep because she just cried and her mouth bled and this was four years ago but I still have to be the one to bring her items to the till if the cashier is a man, and she still has anxiety attacks and she’ll get a rash all over her body and I just want to kill those boys but instead they are still walking around. And I’m in the bathroom with her, dabbing at her skin with a warm cloth until it returns to its regular colour.
And in grade 9 one of my closest friends was kinda seeing this boy and so they hung out one night and then she said that she really had to be getting back home and he said that she wasn’t going anywhere until she gave him what he wanted and he parked the car and took off her clothes and she said no and he ignored her and so she laid in the backseat totally limp and just cried and it wasn’t even sex, he just masterbated by using her body instead of his hand and she came to school the next day with vodka in her water bottle and she drank all day and I had to fight her to get the alcohol away from her and she just cried and threw up and I skipped class while I held her hair back and that same boy texted me a month later, asking if I ever wanted to hangout sometime.
And in that same year my very best friend who has never even kissed a boy, confessed to me that when she was 9 years old, her 12 year old cousin made her give him a hand job and he told her that was what cousins do and he gave her a chocolate bar afterwards and she told me that he probably doesn’t even remember it but that it’s something that she’ll never have the luxury of forgetting.
And in grade 10 I knew a girl who invited her best friend over to watch Disney movies and then he started to put his hands down her pants and she said no but she is 130lbs and he is 220lbs and he called her a tease while she tried to fight him but he used one hand to hold her down, and the other to put inside of her and i was the one to push her inside of a classroom and stand in front of her while calling the police when he showed up at our school looking for her and she was so damn scared.
And a few months later I skipped class and was in the car with a guy who i had had unprotected sex with in the past while under the influence of cocaine but this time I was sober and I insisted we use a condom but he told me he couldn’t feel anything while the condom was on so he ripped it off and I said I refused to have unprotected sex again and so he just grabbed me and forced himself into my mouth and I was crying and he pulled me onto him and I just came saying “stop” over and over like a broken record but he must’ve heard something different because he went until he came and I just sat naked in the backseat while he drove me back to the school and said “we should do this again sometime”. And I had five showers that night and I scratched at my skin so hard to try and rip his fingerprints off of me, I still have the scars.
And I found out soon afterwards that that same guy had raped a classmate of mine, 5 months earlier and she told me about how he brought her McDonald’s first, and how he said they could take things slow and she told me about how he didn’t listen to her either. And he goes to our school and so after she told me about her incident and I told her about mine, we decided to report it to the police and the trial is currently still going on and he told people about it, except in his version we are just “asking for attention” and all his friends talk about how bad they feel for him. As if HE is the one that still wakes up screaming. As if HE felt like his skin no longer was beautiful, no longer belonged to him. And I held her in my arms as she bawled after giving the police her statement. And she did the same for me.
And I met a woman a year ago in a paint store and she had a service dog and I asked what the dog was for and it turns out that she had been so brutally raped and abused in her life, that the dog is literally trained to keep men away from her.
And I’m so FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF THIS WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN. How many rape victims eyes have I already looked into? How many more will I? And how many more friends will I hold while they shake? Because I don’t know how many more I can take. And who the fuck still has the nerve to make rape jokes? And… Something just has to change. Please, someone just start being that change.
-16 year old girl.//////
porque todos tenemos una amiga ala que han abusado pero nadie tiene un amigo abusador. ////
Godhood is like girlhood: a begging to be believed
- Kirstin Chang//////
we are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. we are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. we are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving... we pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive thrive on self-deprivation. we drink coffee, a lot of it. we are on birth control, prozac, and multivitamins... we are relentless, judgemental with ourselves and forgiving with others. we never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers.... we are the daughters of the feminists who said, "you can be anything," and we heard, "you have to be everything"
- Courtney Martin/////////
hoy conmemoramos y no celebramos, porque esto no se puede seguir dando.
marzo 8, 2022
4:02 pm
bogotá
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