Tag: Poetry

We are tired

We are a part of a gender defined by satin sashes and bikini dress codes and the number on our scales.

We are tired

We display ourselves on pageant stages like supermarket shelves. Just trying to feel beautiful for once in our lives. We are taught to love the feeling of drinking water on an empty stomach. The feeling of hunger pulling our skin taught.

Most importantly we are taught to handle these pressures with Mona Lisa smiles, playing “I’m fine” like a broken record. That as long as our mouths tilt upwards at the ends and our teeth are perfectly straight, it doesn’t matter if our voices shake.

We need to remember that we are part of a gender that has always fought for our rights. Together we have abolished corsets and gained the right to vote. Kate Sheppard, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, these women started a revolution. It is our job to continue this fight by rejecting the ideals that are thrust upon us, refusing to sit still and look pretty.

These women taught us that we are more than our looks. That we are strong, loud and proud individuals. Most importantly, they taught us about empowerment.

Empowerment is standing in front of the mirror smiling because we know that the circumferences of our waists are not the most interesting things about us. Empowerment is knowledge, wisdom, kindness, and being able to do what we love no matter what size or gender we are.

We are empowered.

Stephanie Werner
Birkenhead College

It is a matter of voice, that had to be claimed,

A matter of culture that had to be changed,

A matter of history that created a fight,

A generation that turned wrong into right.

 

It is a matter of family and a matter of pride,

For my great-grandmothers on every side,

That left a legacy for my sisters and I to see,

Creating a better world for you and me.

 

It is a matter of strength; they gave us a voice,

Taking up arms on the issue of choice,

To prove we have the right to be heard,

Battles fought with knowledge and word.

 

It is a matter of hope; that changed what would be,

Giving a promise to the future of equality,

Changing society through culture and law,

Creating a time where we can be more.

 

Now it is only fair that we fight too,

To fulfil the legacy of women who fought for me and you,

To give strength to our sisters for generations to come,

We must never forget the battles hard won.

Zoe Vincent
Eden Christian Academy

The Suffrage Movement means love, beauty, and empathy.

It means women coming together and empowering one another.

To me, the Suffrage Movement is more than just something that happened 125 years ago,

To me, it is being a young woman in New Zealand

knowing my voice can be heard

That my gender does not make me inferior

That what may or may not be in between my legs will not interfere with what I believe in.

It is knowing I am loved and worth fighting for.

Jynia Wilde
Manurewa High School

Before she speaks

She will straighten her spine.

Realign the constellations on her back and dust,

Stardust from her palms

From finally catching all of her shooting stars,

Her dream fingertips away.

 

They will try to shoot her down,

With soft words of loneliness and disappointment,

With threats of comfort and security,

With the promise of settling,

But she will not settle.

 

When she raises her fists in protest,

Know that these hands are weapons, not cutlery.

When she raises her fists to the air,

She is holding the world in her hands begging for God to take it back.

She’s got the heavens in her heart and the world in her,

womb all bloodied and bruised,

From the silent wars fought over her body.

Her silence is a worn out gift from birth, while her brothers got toy trucks.

Her silence is both a safe haven and prison,

But the chains are rusted and the walls rotten

 

The stars in her eyes are may be dead,

But her dream is still burning bright.

For when, she finally speaks

They will listen

As she says

No. Katriana Taufalele
McAuley High School

I may stand In dedication to my great-great-great aunt Ellen Melville ( 13 May 1882 – 27 July 1946) .
The first woman in New Zealand to be elected to a municipal authority (1913 – 1946).

1913
Miss Ellen Melville is elected to the Auckland City Council.

Ellen steps up to the lectern
And she faces

down prejudice.

Our heroine stares fiercely into the face of ignorance and resistance.

She begins to speak.

Ellen is ‘not one whit disconcerted by interjectors.’
She is ready to move mountains.

2018
Miss Lauren Parker speaks at the regional debating competition.

I step up to the lectern
And I stand

in my place.

I stare fiercely into the face of a good argument.
Not at prejudice.

I begin, and no one interrupts me.

I may stand here and speak

because she stood and spoke.

I may stand up for what I believe in

because she stood and believed.

I can be who I want.
I can do what I want.
I can go where I want.
So long as I work and fight as hard as she did.

And I know that I may stand here today

because she took a stand

New Zealand’s women stand together in a field of white camellias.
Now we can see the sunshine, but we still have some growing to do

Lauren Parker
Northcote College