the male gaze
By: Julia Correia
why does it matter what i wear outside
if everywhere i go a pair of eyes
follow me as i try to run and hide?
we were never trying to advertise.
why can't men understand the fear they strike?
every call, every whistle, every blurt
triggers a panic in me like a spike.
my clothes do not define me as a flirt.
why don’t we receive any sympathy?
our feeble cries for help remain unheard,
weeping since the dawn of earth's infancy.
muted as if we were a hummingbird.
you have heard this phrase before, but won’t quit.
don't ever say we were asking for it.
if everywhere i go a pair of eyes
follow me as i try to run and hide?
we were never trying to advertise.
why can't men understand the fear they strike?
every call, every whistle, every blurt
triggers a panic in me like a spike.
my clothes do not define me as a flirt.
why don’t we receive any sympathy?
our feeble cries for help remain unheard,
weeping since the dawn of earth's infancy.
muted as if we were a hummingbird.
you have heard this phrase before, but won’t quit.
don't ever say we were asking for it.
Writer's Statement: My inspiration for writing this peace was to create a soft/innocent but powerful statement against sexual assault done to women. I believed that a sonnet would be a great format to make my point. The piece is about not using the phrase "she was asking for it." Due to a sonnet being constructed with ten syllable lines, I believed that that irony of the construction of the poem being "dressed accordingly" would make the point being made in the piece very powerful.