Not too tall --

Don't want him towering over me

Looking down on me

Humiliating me

In more ways than one.


Eyes should be dark --

Not pale.

Don't want them

Cold, empty, icy

Don't need

A shark-like gaze

To chill me to the bone.


Not too large --

Don't need him to tell me

Just how big and strong and intimidating he is

Can't have him saying

Outright or otherwise

That he could hold me

Or anyone else down.

What else are arms for?


Not too crude --

In fact, I just might want him to talk

Like a woman.

Don't get me wrong --

My vocabulary is colorful enough.

It would be hypocritical to rule out profanity.

But, as soon as you call me or her or him or this or that

'*****'

The bile will surely be climbing my throat.


Not too proud --

Yes, confidence is attractive

But conceit is certainly no match.

I don't care if he thinks he looks good --

I will most likely agree that he does --

But one who can not admit to his mistakes

Let alone answer for them

Is a frightening caricature of humanity.

I am so flawed, love

But my flaws are not the cause of yours.


Not too dense --

Anyone who reads this

Male, female, or other

And calls me a 'man hater'

Or asks what I would think of a man

If he wrote something like this about a woman

Should run along

For that is not what I'm saying

Not at all.


I know what I deserve

And it's just what everyone else should get.

I just believe

That 'do unto others'

Should not die

Once the ring is on the finger

Or the name is on the dotted line.

I just believe

That 'love' should not be bastardized

To mean an unconditional, everlasting loop of

'Whatever you want

Honey.'

Only give what you'd want to get

Only take what you know you need

No matter the giver.

Bestow and accept nothing less

And as much more

As you can manage.


Believe me

I'll keep doing the same

No matter what you say.

my male administrators seem to think that it is okay to pull me out of my classes because of my "inappropriate choice of clothing"?
since when is a quarter inch of my stomach or a shoulder showing inappropriate?
he seem to forget that he is taking me away from my education,
the education i need to make my .82 cents to his dollar.

there now is a graduate from Yale
who lies boldly
               getting red and then pale
when asked about girls
and high school beer swirls
he swears he never drank too much ale

Mona Lisa, mona linda,
O emblem of western beauty!
A hundred greedy eyes rest on you,
Drinking you in.

Crowds and crowds gather
To feast on your unsmiling face,
Your stiff posture, your
Lifeless gaze.

Within the golden frame you are
Frozen in time
And unable to escape those relentless gawks.

Life imprisonment
With an audience of 2 million.

Adoring fans, passers-by
Cry out in praise!
“Beauty, beauty, beauty!”

Do they know what they see?
Bland Western beauty standards served up on a plate.

Fresh from Ireland and ready to eat.
Dreams of wealth and success
Wrapped up in pale white skin
And short blonde hair.

She climbs
She leaps
And crashes
And climbs again
Such energy
She almost flies
Such courage
Til a manic scramble
Across a lap
A grabbed tail
This is a boy cat
Oh.
You can get him nuetered.

Most days, you're not a woman developer,
you're a developer.
You work just as hard,
You (try to) talk just as fast
You keep your feelings under the surface (barely)

Actually, scratch that
You're always a woman developer.
you're just so used to internalizing these habits
Trying to have confidence in your skills
despite the impostor syndrome pulling you down each time slowly, like quicksand
Trying to make up for the confidence you never had
compared to someone who always had it all
Trying to not cry in the kitchen because god who
is allowed to have feelings
Trying not to talk about men who made you uncomfortable because oh my god

for the fact that people call women overreacting
most men seem to make every little statement about them, have you noticed?
oh wow, isn't this just reverse sexism?
oh wow, can I even talk to women?

Being so vocal about being queer and Indian but if you make
one noise
one sound
one phrase
about your experience as a woman
because in such welcoming company you subconsciously thought why not

You let down your guard
But
There goes the shattered glass as the topic of gender-based discrimination is finally broached
There goes the thing nobody ever talks about
There starts the debate you did not want to participate in

"Oh wow you're so harsh to these guys"
"We were just slamming what they were doing, you slammed their actual personality wow"
"I just said they sounded like a brogrammer"
"sure if you say so"
"Isn't that just an arbitrary description"

How do you explain
How do you describe every nuanced experience about
Every male in your life
who have been exactly like this to you
How do you explain the light discrimination
The harsh discrimination
The systemic problem as a whole

How can you condense all this into a workplace environment talk
Where you don't usually talk about this?
Where you don't know if you can actually talk about this
Where you know that you ultimately don't want to talk about this
cuz how can you explain these feelings that they can never understand

You shut up and move on with coding.
But inside, you're conflicted with ideas of presentations to express the fact, or never speak about this again
Because in the end,
You're just a developer, not a woman developer to them.