YR Gender Binary Roles

My favorite part about spoken word is the passion that goes into performing it. It's some powerful stuff. Do you ever do yours in front of an audience?

I have not preformed it in front of people yet. I've done it in front of my family a few times but not just random strangers. Though I was just thinking about going to a pretty big open mic out near where Heather lives that I go to quiet often and maybe doing there.

I tend to get really really nervous when speaking in public. Even though I do it all the time with my job, but its normally talking about STI/STD issues and EC Access or just normal womens rights issues so its easier for me then like saying my own writing.

If you do come do it up here, Elizabeth, and want a cheering section, you just let me know. :)

Just one nitpick, in case it matters to you (and because it maters), "Ain't I a Woman?" is referenced by hooks, but it comes from the mighty lips of Sojourner Truth. If you don't know the original source, you really should, because it's pretty much one of the most incredible pieces of anti-racist, feminist speech ever.

"That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me a best place...

And ain't I a woman?

Look at me - Look at my arm!

I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me...

And ain't I am woman?

I could work as much
and eat as much as a man---
when I could get to it---
and bear the lash as well...

And ain't I a woman?

I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
none but Jesus heard me...

And ain't I a woman?

That little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
cause Christ wasn't a woman...

Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough
to turn the world upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
rightside up again."