Sometimes I crawl out of bed, put my pants on, and go through the streets of my university and think about the weather; or what class I'm about to be late for; or even the tiniest thing, like how a leaf crushes beneath my boot.
I don't give a second thought to the fact that my shirt shapes me differently; that my hands curl around my dorm key defensivly just in case; that my pace is a bit faster after 8pm.
Somedays I just go about my life, living it like a person.
This was not one of those days.
Somedays I wake up to find that I am the embodiment of estrogen.
Somedays I am tits and ass, and everything in between.
Feminist fire; Vagina vixen; Out-spoken uterus; Gorgeous girl; Lovely lady; Woman.
Sadly, this was not one of those days either.
Today was just a day.
Neither here nor there.
Nowhere.
The past few days have been like this. I get up, go to classes, come back. Repeat.
I've been clinging to conversations, leaching onto lectures and homework: things to distract me from the fact that I'm not---- I don't know, I'm just…not.
It's not depression.
Depression is a state of being: feeling: sense of despondensy and dejection.
I'm not feeling.
At least, I wasn't until tonight.
Tonight was the crew preview for Anton In Showbuisness.
Let start with the facts:
1. It's late. I am physically incapable of doing anything except lying down and dying.
2. I have never seen this show, so I am walking in blindly, only being led by what little I have been told. So to my knowledge, I was walking in expecting a light romp about sex, Chekov, and theatre.
3. I'm surrounded by three kinds of people: One, the kind that know what the fuck they are doing. Two, the kind that don't know what the fuck they are doing. And Three, Actors: who somehow miraculously know what they are doing as well as don't know what they are doing: both at the same time.
The show started off rather well: funny as all get-out, deep when it needed to be, and an altogether well thought-out performance. I had really enjoyed myself.
Until the final moment.
The show was tied together through tiny vignettes of sound. The woman, who played a naive girl (who played Irena in The Three Sisters, complicated work really: it was a play, within a play, within a play, etc.) was standing talking about how she doesn't know what to do now that the show is over. Or even if she will do anything. Or can do anything.
She lays down, and the song "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World" comes on.
And I start hysterically balling.
Not my normal, laugh-cry: tears of sadness and joy shit. No.
It ripped a bullet through me: missing my important organs while still tearing me to pieces.
I'm sitting in my seat, with six other people: half of them a bunch of guys--- and I am in tiny bits, hunched over in my seat nearly begging for mercy.
I haven't cried this hard since my Junior year of high school.
I'm sitting there in the Forum theatre just…crying.
I hate that song.
It's so beautiful, so rightfully sung: but I can't stand the tune.
It reminds me of who I am.
I'm a woman.
I don't hate women, I love who I am---but sometimes I am pressed so close up to the glass ceiling that my face leaves oil marks on its surface.
"You see, man made the car
To take us over the roadMan made the train
To carry the heavy load
Man made the electrolight
To take us out of the dark
Man made the boat full of water
Like noah made the arc
This is a mans,mans,mans world
But it would be nothing, nothing
Without a woman or a girl"
This song reminds me of how I don't belong. It's a man's world. A world where they have made everything, and yet our place within it is to just exist. To not contribute. To just be within the man's idea of what is and what shouldn't be.
And I know I don't fit because I can't accept that.
The show was amazing: an all female cast, even calling out to the fact that several male characters are played by women just because they could be…
But in the end--- when it's all over and done--- it's a man's world that we live in.
A world where I have to pay attention to the way the shirt clings to my skin; a world where if I don't hold my keys between my hands then it's my fault (at least according to the police) that I get attacked on Mill Street, that I should walk faster at night because the night belongs to someone else.
I want to wake up and just be.
One day I'm gonna wake up and it's gonna be everyone's globe--- but I know it's not going to be tomorrow and that makes me not want to start the day at all.
I used to think that women were called women because we put the "woo!" in men---
but the more I sat there in my seat, being eaten alive by the song--- I forgot. I forgot everything, turned to basic instincts and I just cried.
The man…sorry, boy, besides me turns to my fellow crew: looks at me and points: "Oh hey, Hayley's crying her eyes out! Smile, it was a good play".
I couldn't even look at him.
He tried to tell me that he understood, but he didn't. Doesn't.
I hate to play the part of jaded-lady but some people just won't understand.
I needed to go home and write this down.
Because I need to say this:
The way I feel? Sucks.
And the way I allow myself to feel? Is unacceptable.
It gets worse because there are other girls, ladies, sisters, mothers, women: all around the world who feel with me. Feel like me.
Who feel insignificant because of gender. Because its who they are.
I shouldn't be ashamed of it. I am not ashamed of it… but I'm not okay with it either.
A man's greatest fear is the fear that they will be treated the way they treat a woman…
All the facts lead to that conclusion: the fact that the first thing we think about when we try to insult someone is to refer to them as a female: bitch, pussy,"like a girl", etc.
It's not okay.
One day I'm going to change to the world.
Me and 6 billion other girls will.
It's a man's world, and it's a world I don't want to live in.
… but I have to.
Don't you see? I have to.
excellent, proud of you, thank you
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