WOMEN HURT TOO

We hurt too
Just like you
Blood, scratches, burns
just to name a few.

You see our pain

Too hard to treat us humane.
Y’all are women, you say,
drain away drain.

Mental, physical it’s all the same

Violence against women brings no shame.
The world sees it happening
So who is to blame?

Women are mortal,

So how is this not immoral
Treating us like other
And making it seem normal.

Men make us feel uneasy

Telling us to take it easy
Like truly respecting us
Makes them feel queasy.

Having to fight for our lives

Just to see how a man thrives
In a world built for him
For him and his wives

Women hurt too

Just like you
Stop causing us blood, scratches, burns
Just to name a few.
 Throughout the novel, Silvia Federici examines the roots of capitalism and its genesis

through the witch trials of Europe. One of the main ideas throughout the novel was the many

examples of violence against women, both then and now.

Witch hunts were constructed as the introduction of violence towards women, and this

has been perpetuated today through the media and through the roles that women hold in society. I

was really saddened by the list of violence against women that we created when we first started

talking about the novel in class. It hurt to know that so many women have to experience these

types of violence daily and that they even may lose their life as a result of this violence. I think

the correlation between the introduction and the transition of women’s roles during witch trials

shows that this was a pivotal point in women’s history, and it needs to hold more importance.

For this project, I decided to write a poem that talks about this violence. I wrote it in a

way that does not emphasize the absolutely terrifying parts of violence against women, but rather

comments on the parts that are sometimes normalized within society. I have talked to other

women that have some of the same traumatizing experiences as I do in regard to men. If many of

us have these experiences, then there is a root problem that needs to be examined.

In the poem I also state, “The world sees it happening, so who is to blame?” I think this is

a very important piece of this whole conversation. Yes, we have courses like this one where we

examine violence against women and subjects of that nature, but what about the rest of the

world. People see these acts committed against women daily, but they do not feel like they are

responsible or that they need to interfere. My main hope is that readers of this poem start to think

about being upstanders rather than bystanders. Violence against women happens every day, but it

will not change unless people take charge and try to stop it.