Marge Piercy
The construction of a woman:
A woman is not made of flesh
of bone and sinew
belly and breasts, elbows and liver and toe.
She is manufactured like a sports sedan.
She is retooled, refitted and redesigned every decade.
Cecile had been seduction itself in college.
She wriggled through bars like a satin eel,
Her hips and ass promising, her mouth pursed
In the dark red lipstick of desire.
She visited in ’68 still wearing skirts
tight to the knees, dark red lipstick,
while I danced through Manhattan in mini skirt,
lipstick pale as apricot milk,
hair loose as a horse’s mane. Oh, dear,
I thought in my superiority of the moment,
whatever has happened to poor Cecile?
She was out of fashion, out of the game,
disqualified, disdained, dis-
membered from the club of desire.
Look at pictures in French fashion
magazines of the 18th century:
century of the ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her hips out three feet
each way, while the waist is pinched
and the belly flattened under wood.
The breasts are stuffed up and out
offered like apples in a bowl.
The tiny foot is encased in a slipper
never meant for walking.
On top is a grandiose headache:
Hair like a museum piece, daily
Ornamented with ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full sail,
balloons, baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser turned loose.
The hats were rococo wedding cakes
that would dim the Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.
How superior we are now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of scissors.
She runs on a treadmill every morning,
fits herself into machines of weights
and pulleys to heave and grunt,
an image in her mind she can never
approximate, a body of rosy
glass that never wrinkles,
never, grows, never fades. She
sits at the table closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.
A cat or dog approaches another,
they sniff noses. They sniff asses.
They bristle or lick. They fall
in love as often as we do,
as passionately. But they fall
in love or lust with furry flesh,
not hoop skirts or push up bras
rib removal or liposuction.
It is not for male of female dogs
that poodles are clipped
to topiary hedges.
If only we could like each other raw.
If only we could love ourselves
like healthy babies burbling in our arms.
If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold us.
Why should we want to live inside ads?
Why should we want to scourge our softness
to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish each other with scorn
as if to have a large ass
were worse than being greedy or mean?
When will women not be compelled to view their bodies as science projects, garden to be weeded, dogs to be trained?"
When will a woman cease to be made of pain?
return to Soc 311
The grey flannel sexual harassment suit
The woman in the sexual harassment
suit should be a virgin
who attended church every Sunday,
only ten thousand miles on her
back and forth to the pew.
Her immaculate house is
bleached with chlorine tears.
The woman in the sexual harassment
suit should never have known
a man other than her father
who kissed her only on the cheek, and the minister
who patted her head
with his gloves on.
The woman in the sexual harassment
suit is visited by female
angels only, has a platinum
hymen protected by Brinks,
is white of course as unpainted
plaster, naturally blonde
and speaks only English.
The woman in the sexual harassment
suit wears white cotton blouses
buttoned to the throat, small
pearl clip-on earings,
grey or blue suits and one
inch heels with nylons.
Her mails and lips are pink.
If you are other than we have
described above, please do
not bother to complain.
You are not a lady.
We cannot help you
A woman like you simply
cannot be harassed.