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In this exhibition, I have created a plethora of works of art/poems designed by women that discuss the brutal realities of what it is like to be a woman in America during this time. Not only is it difficult carrying the identity of being a female with all the pressures that society puts on us, but it is also even more difficult for women with intersecting identities. Women of different races, sexualities, body types, etc, make it very difficult to get by as a woman. And while I will never understand what it is like to be a female with other oppressed identities, I have expanded my knowledge about what it might feel like to have to endure such unfair treatment. My goal for this exhibition is to shed light on the horrible issues we have to face as women, but I also wanted to shed light on the fact that despite these prejudices, we are a strong and we are powerful, despite what society and men try to drill into our brains in this patriarchal society.

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Mother's Day? Don't make me laugh: Jane Caro

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Mother's Day? Don't make me laugh: Jane Caro

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This article that we read early in the semester touches on an idea that I had never considered prior to reading it. The title had me confused at first, but after finishing the article, I realized that everything Jane says is true. Mothers day is conceived as a holiday to appreciate mothers for all the things they do, except the gross things that are part of our human biology. No one wants to talk about that part.
"Female bodies – particularly when they do what nature designed them to do – and conceive, gestate, birth and feed human young give the lie to the idea that humans are created in the image of the divine."

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How regularly it rolls around - the one day of the year when we offer an off-hand, mostly self-interested, sentimentalised 'thank you' to our creators - aka our mothers.

I am on the record (in this very publication, in fact) as a hater of Mother's Day. Not a hater of mothers themselves, of course, being one, but of the absurdity of their so-called special day. Just calling it 'special' is a bit of a wake-up call.

I will never forget the late, great disability activist and comedian Stella Young saying once when someone talked in a smiley voice about people with 'special' needs; "You know what 'special', means, don't you? A little bit shit."

I hate the sickly-sweet, patronising tone we take about mothers around Mother's Day, as if by giving birth to children we have somehow become quasi-children ourselves.

Yet there is nothing sentimental, pretty or fluffy about motherhood. It is a dirty, earthy, messy business from beginning to end; sperm, blood, shit, vernix, meconium, mysterious 'waters', colostrum, breast-milk, mucous, snot, tears, vomit - you name it, mothers either excrete it themselves or must clean it up when excreted by others.

It was Simone de Beauvoir's 'Second Sex' that opened my eyes to the fact that far from venerating mothers, we secretly despise the animal nature of giving birth. The only mother celebrated by Christianity, for example, is a virgin - isolated from messy, beastly (literally) sex. Way to make sure no other actual mother ever felt good about themselves.

Female bodies - particularly when they do what nature designed them to do - and conceive, gestate, birth and feed human young give the lie to the idea that humans are created in the image of the divine.

On the contrary, human reproduction, including sex, reminds us that we are animals, specifically mammals - a kind of brainy ape. We are not special or different. Like every other living creature, we are born, we live, we reproduce, and we die.

Women have borne the burden (if you will excuse the expression) of embodying this annoying and ego-deflating reminder ever since men invented patriarchal religions. Perhaps it is one reason why we have been so universally accorded lesser status by such religious traditions, or as de Beauvoir eloquently expressed it, second place.

Perhaps that is also why there remains such implacable taboos around female reproduction and bodily functions. Why normal activities such as breastfeeding and menstruation still evoke feelings of disgust and a desire to keep them both out of sight and out of mind.

Perhaps it is also why the most unspeakable word in the English language is a word for female genitalia. Why is the word cunt deemed so disgusting? Half the human population have one and the vast majority of us entered the world through one, yet this four-letter word has acquired an almost mystical power to shock.

It is the hypocrisy of it that fuels my resistance to Mother's Day. Just as I think a cheap bottle of perfume (if I hear Cate Blanchett say 'Si' one more time while pulling a face that looks like she's trying not to fart, I will explode), a pair of fluffy slippers or - worst of all - a household gadget is no recompense for the unrelenting work, care and effort of mothering, so I do not believe for a moment that we really respect mothers or the work they do and I don't think we ever have.

Far from it. We take mothers for granted and hardly notice the work they do. We don't pay them for their work and we directly penalise them in the long-term for shouldering the lion's share of caring for others.

We charge them a motza for childcare and structure the tax system to make it uneconomical for them to return to paid work. Despite the fact that women have given birth to every tax payer who has ever lived (as well as being tax payers themselves) we seem to begrudge any expenditure from the public purse which might make their lives easier.

Mother's Day? Don't make me laugh. We need mother's lives to be understood and taken seriously in a way they never have been for the full 365 days a year. Otherwise we will continue to have generation after generation of women - particularly those who have been mothers - becoming the fast growing group among the homeless as they grow old.

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'Mother's Day?' Don't make me laugh: Jane Caro

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How regularly it rolls around - the one day of the year when we offer an off-hand, mostly self-interested, sentimentalised 'thank you' to our creators - aka our mothers. I am on the record (in this very publication, in fact) as a hater of Mother's Day.

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"Don't let them put words in your mouth. God gave you a brain. You don't need theirs." - Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

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"Don't let them put words in your mouth. God gave you a brain. You don't need theirs." - Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

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I really love this quote in specific because I think it can represent how multiple people of many different identities should feel. Whether a woman is gay, straight, white, or black, we deserve to know that the outside world and what certain people think of us does not diminish the power that we hold within ourselves. We control our own minds, we have our own potential, and our own thoughts and ideas to make certain things come to life that make us happy. And that is what matters. We know our truths and nobody can take that away from us as long as we don't succumb to the lies and misconceptions that are constantly spread about us.

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Lily Myers' poem discusses the stigma against women regarding eating "too much food" in fear of taking up space. On the contrary, men are raised to take up space, to eat that extra food because who will care if they gain a little weight? But if you are a woman, don't you dare grab that second slice of pizza, you definitely don't need it. This is the idea that society has drilled into our female brains from the beginning of time and Lily does a great job of vocalizing this issue as well as comparing it to other issues that women face in the real world.

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This piece of artwork created by Judy Chicago, a feminist during the seventies, is intended to represent mythical and historical women and their cultural achievements. Each place setting consists of a "butterfly-like" sculpture to represent a woman's vulva.

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This is my personal favorite poems out of all the poems that I read. I think this poem really puts an emphasis on the strengths of a woman regardless of all of the negative stereotypes that surround us everyday. She talks about the circle of life and the powerful ability for women to give birth to children and protect their daughters from the harsh, sexist reality.

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The Cycle by Nina Sitlington | Poetry Magazine

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This poem by Anna Wickham really stuck out to me because she conveys the message that the thoughts and voices of women have been silenced since the world began. She says "I must be silent, if I would be loved", implying that her words have no meaning to men simply because she is a woman.

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I have to thank God I'm a woman,

For in these ordered days a woman only

Is free to be very hungry, very lonely.

It is sad for Feminism, but still clear

That man, more often than woman, is pioneer.

If I would confide a new thought,

First to a man must it be brought.

Now, for our sins, it is my bitter fate

That such a man wills soon to be my mate,

And so of friendship is quick end:

When I have gained a love I lose a friend.

It is well within the order of things

That man should listen when his mate sings;

But the true male never yet walked

Who liked to listen when his mate talked.

I would be married to a full man,

As would all women since the world began;

But from a wealth of living I have proved

I must be silent, if I would be loved.

Now of my silence I have much wealth,

I have to do my thinking all by stealth.

My thoughts may never see the day;

My mind is like a catacomb where early Christians pray.

And of my silence I have much pain,

But of these pangs I have great gain;

For I must take to drugs or drink,

Or I must write the things I think.

If my sex would let me speak,

I would be very lazy and most weak;

I should speak only, and the things I spoke

Would fill the air awhile, and clear like smoke.

The things I think now I write down,

And some day I will show them to the Town.

When I am sad I make thought clear;

I can re-read it all next year.

I have to thank God I'm a woman,

For in these ordered days a woman only

Is free to be very hungry, very lonely.

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The Affinity by Anna Wickham | Poetry Foundation

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I have to thank God I'm a woman, For in these ordered days a woman only Is free to be very hungry, very lonely. It is sad for Feminism, but still clear That man, more often than woman, is pioneer. If I would confide a new thought, First to a man must it be brought.

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“Rapes: eighty percent of the women and girls who cross Mexico to get to the U.S. border are raped on the way.” - Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions

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“Rapes: eighty percent of the women and girls who cross Mexico to get to the U.S. border are raped on the way.” - Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions

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This quote by Valeria Luiselli makes my stomach churn. Americans have so many misconceptions about refugees entering the country and their reasons behind doing so. Their reasoning isn't to come and "take our jobs". Their reasoning is to escape the everyday horrors that they have to face in Mexico. With girls and women specifically, they are constantly raped and abused by gang members and possibly even family members. Not only do they want to escape this, but eighty percent of these women who try to cross the US border to seek freedom and liberation, but they also have to endure exactly what they were running from. An endless cycle of horror and cruelty that needs to stop.

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Guerilla Girls: Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? (1989)

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Guerilla Girls: Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum? (1989)

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This piece was created by a group of anonymous women who were known as the "Guerilla Girls". They created several posters and billboards that represented how women are discriminated against in the world of art, and also the lack of represented female artists of color. The purpose behind this particular piece was to address the issue that there was a huge difference between the number of women artists featured in the Met Museum and the number of female nudes that can be seen there.

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This watercolor painting done by Priyesh Soni represents what it is like to be a female in the current world. The mouth of a woman is being covered by hands that look unmistakably manly, silencing her words and diminishing her power. This piece of art is especially powerful because it puts an image to the feeling and portrays the belittlement of women perfectly.

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The Reality of Being a Black Woman in America by Deborah Gray White

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The Reality of Being a Black Woman in America by Deborah Gray White

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Deborah Gray White is a Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History, as well as a Women's and Gender studies at Rutgers University New Brunswick. She not only discusses the issues that women face everyday in America, but she also puts emphasis on the daily lives of black women in America. She discusses the typical stereotypes against black women, subjecting them to be more vulnerable to rape and sexual assault. White also brings up the topic of slavery and that the college was named after a slaveholder, which she is in the process of changing. This article is super important and eye opening because it shows how women of America can have many intersecting identities that multiply the amount of oppression against them.

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Deborah Gray White, celebrated for groundbreaking research that gave a voice to enslaved black women, talks about life today

Deborah Gray White, Distinguished Professor of History and professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick, understands what successful African-American women - and all black women - are up against.

Before the Women's Marches and the #MeToo and Time's Up movements made headlines and brought issues of women's rights back to the forefront, Rutgers scholars had been working for decades as ardent advocates through their research, teaching and outreach. Over the next several weeks, Rutgers Today will be highlighting many of the women whose work is making a noticeable impact.
It would seem to be cause for unequivocal celebration. If you sort Americans by gender and ethnicity and look at the percentage of each group attending some form of higher education, you'll see that African-American women are enrolled in college at a higher percentage than any other group. And yet Deborah Gray White isn't celebrating - yet. "Sometimes," she says, "the more success you have, the more threatening you appear."

White is more than conversant with success. She's a Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History, a professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, and a former chair of the Department of History at the School of Arts and Sciences. She codirected " The Black Atlantic: Race, Nation and Gender" project at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, was a research professor at the Rutgers Institute for Research on Women, and is chair of the Rutgers University Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Populations in Rutgers History.

She's written widely on the history of black women in America, and her monograph Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South was highly lauded and widely influential. It led to a new subject category ("Woman Slaves") in the Library of Congress and was voted as being among the 100 most admired American history books by the Organization of American Historians.

All of which makes her uniquely situated to understand what successful African-American women - and all black women - are up against. "People think it's only black men who appear threatening, and that's not the case," she says. "They [black women] have to be fearful of police brutality. They have to be concerned that they don't appear too aggressive." Go shopping, and you may be tracked as a potential shoplifter. Walk down the halls of your office, and your coworkers may wonder what right you have to be there.

"Sometimes," she says, "the more success you have, the more threatening you appear."

Citing a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she raises the issue of "weathering: the daily minutiae that black women have to deal with in terms of racism," she says-"weathering," because it wears you down. And so those promising educational statistics have to be weighed against the realities of day-to-day life for African-American women: they suffer from a different set, and a disproportionate number, of health problems; they're three times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy and/or childbirth; they're disproportionately single mothers (67 percent as opposed to 42 percent among Latinas and 25 percent among white women).

Black women have historically been viewed as promiscuous, which made getting legal recourse for rape virtually impossible. "As inconsistent as the law was in regards to white women," says White, "it was just totally nonexistent for black women." She notes that raping a black woman wasn't even against the law in the United States until after the Civil War.

Although White is celebrated for her research and writing on enslaved black women, she's also an acknowledged expert on African-American history in general, a fact evident in her publications, among them Freedom on My Mind, Volume I: A History of African Americans, With Documents; Let My People Go: African Americans 1804-1860; and Scarlet and Black, Volume I: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History. The last book, which she co-edited with faculty member Marisa J. Fuentes, was the fruit of White's work as chair of the Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Populations in Rutgers History (and the work, it should be noted, of the many Rutgers undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty who researched and wrote about the university's complex and often shadowy relationship with slavery).

Among the book's revelations are that a founder of Queen's College, Philip Livingston, was a slave trader and that Henry Rutgers, after whom the university was renamed, was a slaveholder. Both the college's first president, Jacob Hardenbergh, and its first tutor, Frederick Frelinghuysen, were slaveholders. Like most early American colleges, White pointed out at an event celebrating the book's publication in 2016, Rutgers depended on slaves to build its campuses and serve its students and faculty and it depended on the sale of black people to fund its existence.

As an initial redress against the ills revealed in Scarlet and Black, Rutgers followed the committee's urgings to change the name of New Brunswick's College Avenue Apartments to the Sojourner Truth Apartments, after the celebrated abolitionist and slave whose family was owned by relatives of Hardenbergh; to name the footpath between Old Queens and the Voorhees Mall Will's Way, after the slave who laid the foundation of Old Queens; and to rename the Kilmer Library on the Livingston campus after James Dickson Carr, Rutgers' first African-American graduate, who got his degree in 1892 and went on to Columbia Law School.

As to redress for historical (and current) ills against black women, White says she's hopeful about the future. She notes that it was black women-and LGBTQ women-who founded the movement known as Black Lives Matter. And a black woman was also the driving force behind the #MeToo movement. "These women," she says, "have stepped up and said, 'Hey, black lives matter, gay lives matter, they matter, and we're going to bring it all to the table."

Read the Rutgers Magazine #WeToo story profiling Rutgers scholars here.

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The Reality of Being a Black Woman in America

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Deborah Gray White, a Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History, is celebrated for her groundbreaking research that gave a voice to enslaved black women and an acknowledged expert on African-American history in general.

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To This Black Woman Body by Alyesha Wise

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To This Black Woman Body by Alyesha Wise

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This performance if Alyesha Wise is absolutely incredible and extremely moving. She discusses the topics from being a black woman in America, body image issues, and sexual assault. I found her poem incredibly moving because she made the argument that whatever we do as women, we will never be good enough for everyone so we need to find it within ourselves and be good enough for ourselves, nobody else.

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Alyesha Wise - "To This Black Woman Body, Part I"

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“Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context—randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out “I swear to God!” is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship.” - Claudia Rankine, Citizen

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“Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context—randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out “I swear to God!” is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship.” - Claudia Rankine, Citizen

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This quote in Citizen spoke out to me because it addresses the issues that women/black women face in sports. In this quote, Rankine is referring to tennis player Serena Williams. After an a racially motivated act was taken against her during one of her matches that caused her to lose, Serena expressed her rightful, angry emotions. Because of her reaction, critics and spectators spoke of her as though she was some kind of rabid animal. She was now seen as classless, crazy, and a bad person. All because she used her words to speak out about something that was completely wrong and unacceptable. This is just a prime example of how women and women of color are constantly silenced when they try to use their voices, a term I like to call "gaslighting". When someone who is clearly at fault for another's misfortune or emotional reaction, they attempt to make excuses and point the blame on the victim, making it seem as though it was their fault from the get go.

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Rosie the riveter was a cultural icon during World War II. She represented the women who replaced the jobs worked by men when they were sent off to fight in the war. This poster was used as propaganda to recruit women to join the work force where they would work on aircrafts, ration food and supplies for the men overseas, and some even became officers. This was a huge turning point in history for women.

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Rosie The Riveter vintage war poster from World War Two. : stock illustration

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Rosie The Riveter vintage war poster from World War Two. Rosie flexes...

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View top-quality illustrations of Rosie The Riveter Vintage War Poster From World War Two. Find premium, high-resolution illustrative art at Getty Images.

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"Follow Your Arrow" by Kacey Musgraves is one of my personal favorite songs regarding women/feminism. This song sort of goes hand in hand with "Try" by Colbie Caillat, however this song puts a little bit more of an emphasis on the fact that nobody in this world is perfect. That no matter what we do, we're never going to be able to please everyone, even though we might think it's possible. Rather than succumbing to the societal pressure of looking a certain way in order to be "perfect", the song tells us to just live in the moment and be happy with ourselves and take people's opinions with a grain of salt.

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Kacey Musgraves - Follow Your Arrow (Official Music Video)

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This song accurately sheds light on the harsh reality of always being held to a lower standard compared to men. A verse from the song reads "I'm so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I'd get there faster if I was a man". To me, this represents the fact that women have to work so much harder than men to attain the same position that a man holds, especially in the work force.

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This song represents what it feels like to be a woman in America. The pressures of society make it incredibly hard for women to feel like they're beautiful because we are held to so many unachievable standards. The song emphasizes that we don't need to change anything about ourselves to fit society's definition of "beautiful".

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This poem is a poem we read a little earlier in the semester. It discusses the frequent occurrences of rape and sexual assault. This is one of the most upsetting and detrimental issues that women face in today's society. The poem sheds light on the fact that many men tend to make "rape jokes" implying that a woman was "asking for it" or "maybe she shouldn't have worn a skirt". Rape jokes are just another tactic to try and silence women who try to speak up about the awful things that they have to go through just because of their gender.

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The rape joke is that you were 19 years old.

The rape joke is that he was your boyfriend.

The rape joke it wore a goatee. A goatee.

Imagine the rape joke looking in the mirror, perfectly reflecting back itself, and grooming itself to look more like a rape joke. "Ahhhh," it thinks. "Yes. A goatee."

No offense.

The rape joke is that he was seven years older. The rape joke is that you had known him for years, since you were too young to be interesting to him. You liked that use of the word interesting, as if you were a piece of knowledge that someone could be desperate to acquire, to assimilate, and to spit back out in different form through his goateed mouth.

Then suddenly you were older, but not very old at all.

The rape joke is that you had been drinking wine coolers. Wine coolers! Who drinks wine coolers? People who get raped, according to the rape joke.

The rape joke is he was a bouncer, and kept people out for a living.

Not you!

The rape joke is that he carried a knife, and would show it to you, and would turn it over and over in his hands as if it were a book.

He wasn't threatening you, you understood. He just really liked his knife.

The rape joke is he once almost murdered a dude by throwing him through a plate-glass window. The next day he told you and he was trembling, which you took as evidence of his sensitivity.

How can a piece of knowledge be stupid? But of course you were so stupid.

The rape joke is that sometimes he would tell you you were going on a date and then take you over to his best friend Peewee's house and make you watch wrestling while they all got high.
The rape joke is that his best friend was named Peewee.
OK, the rape joke is that he worshiped The Rock.

Like the dude was completely in love with The Rock. He thought it was so great what he could do with his eyebrow.

The rape joke is he called wrestling "a soap opera for men." Men love drama too, he assured you.

The rape joke is that his bookshelf was just a row of paperbacks about serial killers. You mistook this for an interest in history, and laboring under this misapprehension you once gave him a copy of Günter Grass's My Century, which he never even tried to read.

It gets funnier.

The rape joke is that he kept a diary. I wonder if he wrote about the rape in it.

The rape joke is that you read it once, and he talked about another girl. He called her Miss Geography, and said "he didn't have those urges when he looked at her anymore," not since he met you. Close call, Miss Geography!

The rape joke is that he was your father's high-school student - your father taught World Religion. You helped him clean out his classroom at the end of the year, and he let you take home the most beat-up textbooks.

The rape joke is that he knew you when you were 12 years old. He once helped your family move two states over, and you drove from Cincinnati to St. Louis with him, all by yourselves, and he was kind to you, and you talked the whole way. He had chaw in his mouth the entire time, and you told him he was disgusting and he laughed, and spat the juice through his goatee into a Mountain Dew bottle.

The rape joke is that come on, you should have seen it coming. This rape joke is practically writing itself.

The rape joke is that you were facedown. The rape joke is you were wearing a pretty green necklace that your sister had made for you. Later you cut that necklace up. The mattress felt a specific way, and your mouth felt a specific way open against it, as if you were speaking, but you know you were not. As if your mouth were open ten years into the future, reciting a poem called Rape Joke.

The rape joke is that time is different, becomes more horrible and more habitable, and accommodates your need to go deeper into it.

Just like the body, which more than a concrete form is a capacity.

You know the body of time is elastic, can take almost anything you give it, and heals quickly.

The rape joke is that of course there was blood, which in human beings is so close to the surface.

The rape joke is you went home like nothing happened, and laughed about it the next day and the day after that, and when you told people you laughed, and that was the rape joke.

It was a year before you told your parents, because he was like a son to them. The rape joke is that when you told your father, he made the sign of the cross over you and said, "I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," which even in its total wrongheadedness, was so completely sweet.

The rape joke is that you were crazy for the next five years, and had to move cities, and had to move states, and whole days went down into the sinkhole of thinking about why it happened. Like you went to look at your backyard and suddenly it wasn't there, and you were looking down into the center of the earth, which played the same red event perpetually.

The rape joke is that after a while you weren't crazy anymore, but close call, Miss Geography.

The rape joke is that for the next five years all you did was write, and never about yourself, about anything else, about apples on the tree, about islands, dead poets and the worms that aerated them, and there was no warm body in what you wrote, it was elsewhere.

The rape joke is that this is finally artless. The rape joke is that you do not write artlessly.

The rape joke is if you write a poem called Rape Joke, you're asking for it to become the only thing people remember about you.

The rape joke is that you asked why he did it. The rape joke is he said he didn't know, like what else would a rape joke say? The rape joke said YOU were the one who was drunk, and the rape joke said you remembered it wrong, which made you laugh out loud for one long split-open second. The wine coolers weren't Bartles & Jaymes, but it would be funnier for the rape joke if they were. It was some pussy flavor, like Passionate Mango or Destroyed Strawberry, which you drank down without question and trustingly in the heart of Cincinnati Ohio.

Can rape jokes be funny at all, is the question.

Can any part of the rape joke be funny. The part where it ends - haha, just kidding! Though you did dream of killing the rape joke for years, spilling all of its blood out, and telling it that way.

The rape joke cries out for the right to be told.

The rape joke is that this is just how it happened.

The rape joke is that the next day he gave you Pet Sounds. No really. Pet Sounds. He said he was sorry and then he gave you Pet Sounds. Come on, that's a little bit funny.

Admit it.

Patricia Lockwood is the author of Balloon Pop Outlaw Black

(Octopus Books, 2012). Follow her on Twitter at @TriciaLockwood.
You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

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The rape joke is that you were 19 years old. The rape joke is that he was your boyfriend. The rape joke it wore a goatee. A goatee. Imagine the rape joke looking in the mirror, perfectly reflecting back itself, and grooming itself to look more like a rape joke.