cimorene

my skin is tan; my hair is fine my skin is brown--my manner is tough
my hips invite you i'll kill the first mother i see
my mouth like wine my life has been rough
whose little girl am i? i'm awfully bitter these days
anyone who has money to buy because my mothers were slaves

-nina simone, four
i'm a pretty militant feminist, issues-wise, no matter whether i go to rallies and stuff, which i don't. i'm apathetic--so sue me. my mother was the president of new orleans n[ational]o[organization for]w[omen] when i was a baby. i got dandled on kim gandy's (current prez of nat'l now, i think) knee.

and i live in a v/ liberal place and all, but it's just so frustrating that i want to cry. the evil of the media and images and mass-consumerism and capitalism and institutionalized sexism and--it all just makes me so tired. what do i hate?

o that i don't want to go dancing without shaving my legs even though you couldn't hope to find a more hippie-ish crowd than that at the grange.
o that i still love red lipstick and sexy kitten-heels no matter how i try not to.
o that some of my friends can't go out without makeup (so they think) and my roommate used to be anorexic.
o that even when i'm 20 lb underweight, which is quite dangerous, my friend sara can say "at least you look good," albeit sheepishly, and i can agree.
o that i can't have my picture taken without eyeliner and concealer.
o that until last december i couldn't have gotten an abortion without parental consent in alabama.
o that somehow voluptuous women are "fat," and
o that so many of them who are so beautiful don't believe it, and
o that when i tell my mother she's gorgeous she thinks i'm saying it because she's my mother and when i tell my cousin she thinks i'm saying it because she's my cousin.
o that the entire country could beat up on monica lewinsky while department stores sold out of her favorite lipstick and old navy sold out of the dress.
o that only men are supposed to masturbate and like porn.
o that britney feels she has to dress that way and then
o that the same women who read cosmo and in style critizice her for sexualizing herself.
o that most of my friends think it's better to shave standing in the dark and cut oneself and bleed like a pig than to go unshaven for a month at camp in the wilderness.
o that somehow miniskirts are automatically more sexy than jeans.
o that magazines pat themselves on the back for using extraordinarily beautiful girls of normal dimensions as models--when they do it, every six months or so.