being a girl

beautiful
Dawn Fung

when you were putting on make up
and your reflection told a different story.
when you stopped, your hand quivered
like a million notes before it was ever played
and you let drop
a pencil if i was wrong.
and you cried

What it feels like for a girl
by Madonna

'Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
'Cause it's OK to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl'

I hate being a girl, a woman, whatever. I hate it that when women greet each other, they never fail to comment on one another's weight.

'Did you put on weight?'
'Did you lose weight?'

Of course the latter would earn a smile, otherwise what mammoth effort put into making up one's self esteem would have gone down the drain. Just by one stupid comment. Oh I can't stand it. Just can't stand it.

I hate being a woman. I hate being at the receiving end of words like 'fat' and 'bulge' and feeling guilty for eating one extra cookie. Argh, I can't stand it.

I hate being sized up head to toe and up again, by the eyes of a man walking past me as if I wasn't a daughter of a mother and father, with the same need he has when he stands in front of his wife, flaccid as a squid. Wanting, needing respect.

I hate being a girl, with breasts getting in the way of elbows and bags in a crowded train, having to decipher if the nudge just now was done out of slumber. I hate not having a space to myself, to cave into my world as the world hurtles towards nothing and not have someone wanting me naked as he ravishes me with his mind.

I hate to apologise for being aggressive when I say I love you first, for being confident of what I want and not wanting to leave things to chance. I hate having the day past me by without plunging my fork in it; have my cake and eat it too.

Most of all, I hate being a girl because a girl cannot choose not to be a girl.