Women's Bodies

By Eve Decker

A piece of the history of Western civilization

It that women were permanent children under the law

You went from your father to your husband

And you had no rights at all

Does it strike you as connected to this piece of our past

That the women of today we hold up as ‘ideal’

Are without exception small, slender and youthful

No room for variation, no room to heal

CHORUS

Don’t teach me to hate my body

I’m a woman, I’ve been around a while

Don’t teach me to hate my body

I have a woman’s body, not a child’s

I stopped watching television, and looking at magazines

But I still feel oppressed by our culture’s expectations of me

Don’t put me on a metal scale and tell me I’m not small enough

With furrowed brow you imply that if I’m not small I won’t be loved

CHORUS

BRIDGE:

Let’s look at the roots of this sickly tree

We’re living in the branches of 5,000 years of patriarchy

Don’t let it hypnotize you, remove yourself from the scene

Your body’s beautiful, the problem is the context we’ve been in

To be independent, strong, or big threatens the status quo

It’s only been 100 years since women had the vote

The laws have changed, misogyny went underground

Anytime you hate your body, society’s doing just fine keeping you down

I will love my body, I’m a woman

I’ve been around a while

I will love my body

I have a woman’s body, not a child’s

We can love our bodies, we are women

We’ve been around a while

We can love our bodies

We have women’s bodies, we are not children

We have women’s bodies and we are beautiful just the way we are