In countries like mine, the law is blatantly against women. What we do have, though, is love and community. You never think only of yourself, you always think of your neighbors and family, too.
The problem with a lot of Western women is they think they can Help me, that they know know what’s best for me. Especially feminist women. They come into conversations waving the American flag, forever projecting the idea they are more intelligent than I am. I’ve learned that American women look at women like me to hide from their own pain. They can’t face their pain, and mine is so obvious, they think they can help me without looking at themselves. But many women in this country are empty. They desperately try to find something to fill the empty space inside them— the loneliness deep inside. In my country, this loneliness does not exist.
In America, women pay the money that is Theirs and no one else’s to go to a doctor who cuts them up so they can create or sustain an image men want. Men are the mirror. Western women cut themselves up voluntarily. In my country, a child is woken up at three in the morning, held down and cut with a razor blade. She has no choice. Western women Pay to get their bodies mutilated.
When you base your whole self-image on a man— on another human being— how can you expect that person— whether it’s a man or a woman— to respect you? How can You respect yourself when you do not have love and respect for yourself?

Attacking femaleness, deriding ‘girly stuff’ and rolling your eyes at ‘women’s issues,’ declaring yourself a ‘tomboy’ who gets along better with men because women are silly or pretty or whatever— these are expressions of internalized sexism. If that’s the way you feel about your own sex you’ll be doomed to feel inferior no matter what you achieve in life.

According to classificaiton born a woman.
Eternal wife to pots, plaes, socks,
brooms, kitchens, baby food and flour sifters.
I joy in my apostleship of sheets.
Aseptically I reject my ambiguities,
defend the legacy of the spirit,
while exorcizing the budget.

Time’s worker, I distribute the thousand and one days
in flagrant compromises, birthdays and baptisms.
A whole web of dropsical behaviors.

Loneliness singles me out in the shops and plaza.
In instinct I take refuge.
They control my womb.

They postpone me, limit me, they dose out tenderness
and my words.
High level plans condition my every move.
Over giving or not giving birth they
do all the talking.
They create hate and fear.
Throw in in my face, laws, religion,
or custom.

And you there smiling, I’ll rub you out of Paradise.