To All The Mothers

The next time your daughter goes on a date
Don’t ask her if her boyfriend paid
Or if she waltzed through the entrance as he stoically stood
Arm out, pushing the door from its frame.

Don’t say, oh, it’s a boy thing
As men goof off and joke around
As if it’s criminal for a little girl
To choose scraped knees and race cars
Over pretty pink nail polish and fake diamond rings.

Don’t pretend you don’t fart.

The page in my history textbook
Which defines the origins of gender roles
Seems to have been ripped out
Then again the author was a man
So perhaps that page never even existed.

Mothers, never refer to yourself as a “stay-at-home mom”
Never plant that subordinating seed into a child’s mind
As if there is only one place for a women
In the house
Men can wear aprons too
Men can work vacuums
Men can…
And there is more that women can do.

Mothers, tell your daughters
How every man you ever dated was more emotional than you
And how they got clingy, and wanted to talk about their feelings.
Mothers, tell your daughters
They don’t have to have long flowing hair
And skinny little legs
Just to please man.

Next time your daughter goes on a date
Ask her who asked out who
As if it could go either way.
Don’t ask about chivalry
Ask about equality.

Mothers, prick your daughters pristine fingertips
Till they can feel
With the blood-drenched palms
The everyday pain and pressure
Of being silently oppressed
Reaching, searching, hurting and still trucking
Revitalized by the numbness of our subordination.

Mothers, dualism died long ago
It’s buried in the grave right next to Plato
Scratch out that Theory of Forms
Stating there is one woman
And one man
There are seven billion
Completely different and remarkably perfect humans
Humans
On this earth.

Next time your daughter goes on a date
Tell her to talk about how she wants equal wages
And when he offers to pay, have her decline
Don’t give man any reason to believe he desires more than us
To pay for us.

Next time your daughter goes on a date
Tell her to skip the makeup
Unless he’ll have it on too
Tell her to eat like a slob
If she wants to .

Mothers, tell your daughters
To be who they are
Despite sex organs
And don’t make your daughters
Choose to be women
Or humans.