Games to the Mind ✔

The Invataion

When I was a little girl I climbed the tallest tree I could find and between the sweaty palms and calloused fingers of a 6 year old "professional tree climber" I looked down and I saw rickety branches shake under my petite frame. My mother called me down after moments of releasing a bitten tongue that lashed at me for going so high. "that's too dangerous for little girls like you"

When I was 10 years old I got the sex talk. I was never told about the moments of euphoria rising in your goosebumps from the touch of a lovers finger tips or the paroxysm from a kiss with an expiration date. No. It went a little something like this: it goes in and the baby goes out. It is what you do for a man. No one told me I would be walking around as a flesh covered prison locked behind ribcage bars and tucked away between prominent hip bones. That's just how it is for a "girl like me."

When I was 16 my boyfriend hit me. He smacked me across the face but no force of impact could ever hurt worse than the words he left me with he said that's what happens when you're "a girl like me." Someone forgot to mention between the development of breasts and a independent soul that no one should ever dare to lay a hand on me. Because no self righteous man who thinks he deserves sex because he objectifies women like the social norm deserves to have a say in what we do - in what I do with MY body.

I wore light pink lipstick every day for a year because "that's the color he wants to see me in." no one ever asked whether the color I liked on my lips was purple or red. Between the grim, toothy smiles of men with locked jaws and fists I became yet another victim of a catcall. I was taught there are ways to be successful in this world and to my disillusion they did not mean working hard. But don't ask another woman who refuses the term "feminist" because I have breasts and hips under that tight dress so I was asking for it. I need small wars of gender equality because people still ask what the victim of rape was wearing.

Now the question, what about a girl like you? What about the symphonies crying out from underneath your collarbones begging for your attention to tell you they were wrong. They told you things done belong to you. Enjoying intimacy, high powered jobs and pleasure, mosh pits, body hair on your legs, screaming, yelling fighting for what you believe in. They'll tell you none of it was yours to start with.

I watched a boy at a lake from my parked car struggling to get his paddle boat out of the water and it was not until thin legs and pink flushed cheeks walked over and showed him how that he finally got it out. If you educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.

Every human being has a museum within them and prized possessions and thoughts. Because gender equality is for everyone and this is your official invitation.