Women's Writes - Works

Simone wandered through the apartment, dressed in a fluffy white bathrobe and matching slippers. She carried a pair of yellow heels that seemed to be twice as high as the pair discarded on the floor. Meghan could see through an open door to the bedroom, where a bright yellow dress was draped over the bed, a party dress, just waiting for Simone to slip it over her head. The shadow pushed Meghan forward

Linda noticed there were only three more presents under the tree. One of them had her name on it, but the other two were for Pete. The tea set was buried deep underneath a pile of fluffy sweaters, ribbons, and skirts. Her mother set the biggest box on her lap with care, urging her not to break anything.

The blankness of the paper mocked her, called her every name in the book, and still she could find nothing to say. What kind of assignment is that, she thought. Why would any teacher give such an assignment? Write about being a woman. Great. What did she know about being a woman? It was just…well, it just was. It wasn’t something she did, or thought about. She just woke up every morning as a woman. So what did it mean to be a woman?

This is a strange phenomenon I’ve encountered in many places. Men often perceive women as dominating professions almost as soon as the first woman arrives. It’s like somehow each woman expands in their mind into three women, or more. Whatever the numbers demonstrate, the men know different, because they’ve seen it. The women are there, there are more of them than men, and they are now taking over the workplace. Why is this? What is going on in men’s minds that makes them perceive women to be so overrepresented in the workplace, when numbers show they are there in much smaller numbers than the men?

Mrs. Smith shrieked, and thrust past me toward the small playroom. She shoved open the door just in time to get a face full of flying penguin. The battle was in full throttle, and the room writhed with the energetic bodies of four- and five-year-old combatants. Right now, the penguins were ahead, and I cheered them on silently, rooting for the girls to beat the boys just once in this endless battle. Rufus was being thoroughly thrashed with a penguin when his mother rushed toward the little brat and scooped him out of the fray, her glare in my direction intended to intimidate. It didn’t. I simply didn’t care any longer.

The symbol puzzled her. She turned it over, but it made no more sense upside down. What was this strange thing, and why was it here? A circle, a cross. The circle on top of the cross…unless the cross went on top of the circle…what did it mean? It was plastered all over the walls. A big sculpture of the same symbol dominated the room. It was like an optical illusion, and now the woman behind the big desk had handed her one, told her to take it with her as she joined the group.

An emergency room at the Family Hospital in Outer Ring City, Terpis. Late evening of the first night of the Holy Festival of the Fish Lord. An examining table, some scary shiny instruments, and a desk shaped vaguely like a salmon, the sort of salmon that might be created by Salvador Dali (the greatest surrealist trout of all Terpis).

Guilt washed over me, her words striking at the very core of my being. Silenced her…she couldn’t have used any harsher words. The voice of a woman, a strong woman trapped inside the body of a 100-year-old doll, and I was silencing her. I kept her from speaking in the past, pushed her backwards, even put her in the closet once or twice to prevent her from embarrassing me by speaking too boldly. I bowed my head to her, mute acknowledgement that it was time.

Prove it. Prove it again. Prove it one more time. Pics or it didn’t happen. Right. Because men take videos of themselves sleazing all over young women, or because all young women come with built in body cameras to register the unwanted attentions of men who don’t recognize limits. What? They don’t have body cameras? That must mean they wanted it, because if they didn’t, why wouldn’t they want to establish proof that the male world was as sleazy and dangerous as they claim on #MeToo?