Because I am a woman
I must love the color pink,
I must love rom coms and shopping
and most importantly, I must love some good gossip

Because I am a woman
I must belong in the kitchen
and in the laundry room
and I must know my place in the world because my breasts scream out
“less than, weaker than, smaller than”

But the men on the TV and the men on the radio
speak of our bodies like they own them,
like they need them in order to survive,
They thrive off our sexuality and then shoot us down
telling us our anatomy makes us weaker

Their logic is lost and their minds are cross-woven
because I don’t see any of them carrying children
or purchasing overpriced feminine products every month
as though we want to be spending every last cent on something that
isn’t an option

Because I am a woman
I must be photoshopped from head to toe
because god forbid I’m not a size double zero
with curves that reach to both sides of the world,
god forbid my bones be showing,
and god forbid my stomach isn’t flat

for then, the men won’t like me

so they teach us from the day we are born that we must be
thin but not too thin,
curvy but not too curvy,
funny but not funnier than them,
ambitious but not more successful than them,
sexual whenever they want me to be
but not when they don’t want me to be
because then I become
a s***

We’re growing up in a world where the words
anorexic,
fat,
s***,
w****,
bossy,
and crazy
are thrown around like confetti, like they mean nothing
because we’re women and we just need to take it
and stay in the place we are given since birth,
the place of
less than, weaker than, smaller than,
with a hint of,
you will never be better than,
you will never be smarter than,
you will never be more successful than,

Because I am a woman,
they say I am weaker,
but what they don’t know is that I am strong

From living in a world of unrealistic expectations
run by men that know nothing other than how much money they’ve got in their back pockets,
I learned to be a fighter
and to challenge these stereotypes,
to cross the lines set for me and create my own,
to make differences the world has never seen,
and exercise my rights I know I have always had

And you can tell me these breasts make me weaker,
but I know you’re dead wrong

It’s because I’m a woman
that I know how to fight

It’s because I’m a woman
that I know I am strong

and It’s because I’m a woman,
I know your old fashioned stereotypes will never be right.