Fight Back!

It's been a while since I blogged. I've been busy trying to teach 95 11th graders about English. I'm still pretty much enjoying it though. This post will have a theme. Female Empowerment! The teachings of my feminist parents are kicking in. I had to write a series poem for my class so I wrote one about the evils of fashion magazines. But first, This is really upsetting me. I'd really hate to think what will happen if the assured fight to overturn this (eventual) law is lost.

And now onto my poem:

The High Price of High Fashion


I

This is Southern California:
Home of the beautiful
people who
are mostly
hollow inside.

The place where chubby girls
want to be thin,
and skinny girls
want to be thinner.

Walk down Rodeo.
You’ll see them there;
hundreds of girls
who all look the same.

They
are
blonde,
they
are
tall,
they
are
sticks.

They are the ones
who have made
my 7 year old
ashamed to wear
her bathing suit.

She says
she’s too fat.
While I think
she’s too young
to be thinking
like that.

II

The designers consume me
and my flesh
like tigers tearing
into raw meat.


They tell me
to lose ten pounds.
They don’t
care how
so long as
on Monday I can
resemble a washboard
in that swimsuit.

Fat models don’t
sell the dream,
the fairy tale
that everyone thinks
is my life.

People don’t know
that it’s not really
so glamorous.
I don’t spend my days
laying languidly
on the beach
looking dewy and fresh
and so sexy.

I spend half of my days
being made up
and pinned and sewn
into some hideous creation
from the next
hot designer.

The other half
I spend flying here
or there to be sexy
for someone else.
I get lonely.
I get tired.

III

Flipping through the pages
of some stupid fashion magazine
I see so many images
that make me want to scream.

On one page is an article
about loving yourself
for who you are.
On the next page
is a picture of a model
so thin that she’s barely there.

They should put a warning label
on these ad campaigns
like they do with cigarettes.
Warning:
Viewing these images
may cause severe
deterioration of self-esteem.

They should tell girls
about what airbrushing does,
like the warnings
on a car’s mirrors.
Attention:
Thighs in image
are much larger
than they appear.

Once, I thought I was fat.
My sister’s abusive boyfriend
Jose called me a cochina
I looked at my Teen Magazine
and thought he was right.

A few years ago
I was offered
an interview
with a modeling agency.
I turned it down.

IV

Look at this photo!
She looks huge!
We’ll have to do
some major retouching.
Honestly, does she think
125 pounds
is acceptable for a model?


V

It has taken years
but here I am
standing in front of a mirror
in love with what I see.

I am 5 foot 6
and 145 pounds.
I am curvy
I am beautiful
I am sexy.

I am not
the fat little girl
who used to live
inside of me.