Caseyrenée Lopez
let me name the ways to objectify women
a response to Jeffrey Harrison's "The Shoulders of Women"
last night i was subjected / to overt sexism / by a white man / gasp /
a man my stepdad's age
a man with a receding hairline
that reached so far back
it could see the p a s t
a man / who objectified / every / single / woman
in the room / with each / u t t e r e d syllable /
he said / with fake sincerity / that he didn't /
like to / read this poem out loud
because it was sexist
but decided / to continue
because some of his
female friends said it wasn't so bad
&
that made it okay
he said that a gay guy / once told him "the poem even
turned me on" / as if
that changed anything / as if
that increased its value
he wrote about the shoulders / of women
let me name the ways to objectify women:
1.
their shoulders are for male
consumption
2.
their skin glows star blue under male gaze
3.
women are objects of his cis desire
and his alone
4.
their nakedness satisfies
his hungry eyes
5.
their bodies present him with
fantasy & nonconsensual pleasure
6.
their strapless dresses are made for
his eyes / to linger over /
contemplating the warm
flesh u n d e r n e a t h
7.
their shoulders are slaves / to his ego / an
erotic show / to sate his boredom
8.
their bodies are a casual display
of sexuality / of femme presentation
9.
don't you know / women don't dress
for their / pleasure /
but to swell man's pride
10.
don't you know / a woman's inept
mind is incapable of comprehending
the ways their bodies lure men
to do unspeakable acts of violence
Let me name the ways
cis male desires poison art:
1.
i don't have enough
letters or words or
time to complete this task
2.
read or watch the news
for your daily dose of
gendered violence
I wrote "let me name the ways to objectify women" after attending a ceremony at my alma mater for the Carson McCullers Literary Awards. I was the judge for the high school poetry category and was very happy about the opportunity to be involved in the selection process and ceremony. It was only after arrival that I was notified that there would be a reading by Jeffrey Harrison, a poet that I wasn't familiar with, though in retrospect, I see that it was likely because of his general WASPyness. Mr. Harrison read "The Shoulders of Women" but prefaced the reading by saying he didn't like reading it because it could come off as sexist. During the reading I cringed in my seat, feeling my skin crawl, I audibly gasped, rolled my eyes, and scanning the room, watched the jaws of every woman/femme person in attendance fall into the floor. After sitting through the 45-minute-long reading, I quickly gathered my belongings and left. I had a friend with me, and as we walked to my car I ranted about the disgusting poem and how we needed to write responses. I half-jokingly said, "That poem should've been called, 'Let Me Name the Ways to Objectify Women,' it was fucking awful," and my friend replied, "That's your response poem."
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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