The Last Will and Testament

Sep 22 01:10 UTC 1993

I wandered upon a book of women's prose and poetry a while ago,
read some in the store, passed it by, went back a few days later 
and tested out another chapter, left it in the store, then finally
went back and bought the darned thing.  There was something compelling
about the content. 

I'd like to share one of the poems by Claire Braz-Valentine.
It's long and the formatting is reproduced as published.

           ************************

The Last Will and Testament of This Woman

To every woman who is my daughter
To every woman who is my sister:

I will to you first of all, my diets --
my grapefruit diet, my orange diet, rice diet, wine diet,
water diet, banana diet and fasting diet.

I will you every time anyone ever said to me, "Have you ever
thought of going on a diet?"

I will you TOPS clubs, Weight Watchers Clubs, Pill Pushing
Doctors, amphetamines, water pills, thyroid pills, and laxatives
   that I have known 
and I have known many--

I will you all the times I wished the scale would say 125 instead of 145

I will you a living girdle,
and eighteen hours girdle, 
a four way stretch girdle,
an I can't believe it's a girdle girdle,
a rubber girdle full of holes that "breathed" when I couldn't.
a girdle with legs so tight I left it in the public bathroom in the waste-
basket--
a garbage can full of girdles,
And the day a man told me, "You got an ass that could kill a man"
And all the time it was killing me.

I will you my bras, 
my bra with under-wires that pushed me up,
my cross-my-heart bra that pushed me out,
my padded bras that made me fuller,
my natural bras that made me natural,
a garbage can full of bras--
a dresser full of bras--
and the everlasting indecision about whether to or not to.

I will you something called a Merry Widow
which is something like an iron maiden.
I will you all the tears I cried lying on the bed at six o'clock in
the morning after my junior prom,
trapped in the damn thing
till I thought I was squeezed to death
And my mother finally freeing my tortured body.

I will you my diaphragm that didn't fit,
that got stuck,
that got a hole in it,
that slipped, 
that I forgot and wore for a week.
I will you my diaphragm pregnancy.

I will you my coil that made me bleed every day for a year.
I will you my bow that made me bleed every day for three months.
I will you my pregnancy that I lost because I bled so much.

I will you my birth control pills
that made me throw up, 
grew me big breasts
and then spots on my face
and a terrible case of nervousness
and a good start on a beard.

I will you my douche bag
filled with lemon flavored scents,
mint flavored scents,
flower flavored scents,
washed rinsed and flushed with flavored scents.

I will you all the foams and jellies and sprays
and suppositiories that I was ever
tempted to insert into the most mysterious warehouse of undesirable
smell.
I give you them all.
I give you them all.
  
I give you my flase eyelashes
false fingernails
my perfume 
my pancake makeup
my blusher
my rouge
my eye shadow
my mascara that made my eyes bigger,
that made my eyes darker,
that made my eyes like a distored clown
when I cried.

I give you every ad I ever read
that made me think I needed these things.
 
I will to you every bit of shame I ever was made to feel 
about being the woman I was born to be.

I will you all of this
in the hopes that once you have all these things
you will realize that you don't need them
much sooner than I realized that.

                           -- Claire Braz-Valentine

response 4 of 48:

Sep 30 06:51 UTC 1993

That was beautiful, Mary!  Thank you.

Audrey -- I've given up diaphrams, birth control pills, and IUDs.  I depend
on condoms because they don't hurt anyone, unlike the others, and because
they can and do save lives.  If a man cares enough about me to be worthy
of entering my bed, he cares enough to share the responsibility with me.

response 6 of 48:

Oct 1 20:46 UTC 1993

That's a fine suggestion, as long as the pill doesn't make you ill.

response 8 of 48:

Oct 2 14:08 UTC 1993

That cetainly sounds logical, but it doesn't sound like sharing the
responsability. 
 
More men should freeze their sperm and get vasectomies.

response 10 of 48:

Oct 3 18:55 UTC 1993

Personally, I think that would encourage more irresponsible behavior.

response 12 of 48:

Oct 5 21:32 UTC 1993

HIV isn't a significant concern in HIV tested free monogamous relationships.  

While I've heard that argument before, I don't think that we should 
discourage birth control because it might lead to promiscuity and more 
disease.  

response 14 of 48:

Oct 6 23:14 UTC 1993

Fewer fools is good fodder for future thought.

response 16 of 48:

Oct 7 01:47 UTC 1993

Fools follow fads no matter how much folderol they are fed.

response 18 of 48:

Oct 7 03:07 UTC 1993

(Tis folly to fuel femmes with frivolous folderol.)

response 20 of 48:

Oct 7 22:30 UTC 1993

Thats.  . .Fine females can fuel Femme with folderal forever, folks!!!

response 22 of 48:

Nov 26 12:13 UTC 1994

None spring to mind.  Mostly, I've not been reading feminist stuff.
Too whiney.++0

response 24 of 48:

Apr 2 22:54 UTC 1998

Hi GV!  Of course you can join us, but you have joined a discussion that
seems to have ended a few years ago.  Are you a female in India?  If so, what
sorts of problems do Indian women have that are different from problems that
Indian men have?  You can answer if you are a man, too, of course.