From the Fog of Last Night

I started watching this poem and thought it was interesting, a self gender critique, until he said "every woman has a story that has been told a maximum of one soul or maybe less. . ." (I believe that was the line). I stopped for a moment, and paused, paused on the thought that while each of our stories are so eerily similar they are still never told, never echoed over the landscapes of our society, into the valleys of oppression, they've never truly reverberated against every thing held high, like education, government, religion. What would it look like to hear the voices of every woman who has ever sat in a counsellor's chair or over a cup of coffee with a friend, uttered the words, "I hate myself, they've made me hate myself." I hate that I feel: unsafe, inadequate, unloved, vulnerable, just a set of breasts, free for the abusing, helpless, alone, preyed upon, deserving of their misogyny..." The words may not come out with any eloquence, or censorship, they may just fumble out in the rage of self condemnation and the knowledge that I feel guilty. I feel guilty that I can't ignore your leering, that I can't ignore how you can make me feel as shameful as if I was standing bare in front of you with just one extra glance from you. How do we collect the stories and form a chorus? Form a chorus that says, Enough! Enough with the over sexualization, enough with the shame, enough with the prevailing misogynistic attitudes that do not serve anyone's best interest. I know now I have the right to say stop, go away, F**k off you pervert if necessary, but those aren't the end, where and how do we start the change?