Norah Smyth was brought up in Great Barrow, the small Cheshire village where I live. Her father was a wealthy corn merchant originally from Ireland & their home, Barrowmore Hall, destroyed by a stray German bomb in WW2 was one of the county's finest Victorian country houses.  She was an activist for social change and a close friend of (and chauffeur to) the Pankhursts, using most of her £30,000 in...

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A creature is created,

a joy and a blessing to all;

God called her Woman,

Adam named her Eve,

which means she who gives life

 

Eve was guilty of taking a bite

of the forbidden fruit of the tree of good and evil;

Adam was tempted by her and that was the end of it all,

that was how Original Sin was born

 

That was the beginning and then came the rest,

a stigma tha...

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Women, girls
Little ladies with bouncy curls
We are brought to Mother earth with names of angels, princesses and fairies
But all too soon, the world we grow in turns unsafe, hideous, and scary
These flowers - as buds they never remain
For before 'tis the time to bloom, they learn to battle with the flames

Every day, every moment, a battle she fights
That little lady, that angel, with all ...

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I am angry.

I am angry at men, and women
and children and mothers and fathers.
my body is full of unbridled rage, that the ones
I love and care about, sometimes even myself,
can turn a blind eye to the atrocities right in front of us.

Children ripped from their mothers
Young people blinded and beaten for speaking the truth
Men spewing bile, cruelty, poison to hide the 
depths of their...

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The rose recognizes the beauty of the sunflower, all the while self-assured in her own. She does not envy the golden beauty for her appeal to you

 

She knows better - she has guarded her stem from the likes of your fingers and the fingers of those before you, and the ones that will come after

 

She knows that while you, selfishly and ignorantly, believe the garden to be created for you...

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Here comes my ship,

She roared blissfully,

Steaming in on a golden sea,

But wait they pray, be what may, 

Girls don't board ships and it should stay that way

 

Here comes my ship,

She danced with glee,

Sailing in on a pale blue sea,

Stop! They spray, don't go that way!

Good girls should stay, darling what will your parents say?

 

Here comes my ship,

She clapp...

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You spit "Nay"

 

in our "Ayes"

 

to express

 

your oppress-

 

sive nature.

 

 

 

Nothing new-

 

old tea brewed;

 

spring cleaning-

 

first inning.

 

 

 

Soul-less laws

 

abolish

 

human rights,

 

to sell slaves.

 

 

 

Bordered walls

 

paved with blood-

 

stained bodies,

 

buried below.

...

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I am not free

but tense and unwavering

 

I am not heard

but roused and spoken for

 

I am not seen

but misguided and reassured 

 

I am not understood 

but manipulated and suppressed

 

I am not felt 

but raped and ashamed

 

I am not yours

but degraded and sold

 

I am not inanimate 

but painted and wound up

 

I am not free, how could I ev...

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For ages
Saddled with
Domestic chores
Confined in doors
With a traditional muzzle
Devoid of a voice
With fellow housewives
We were sweltering
Under the class
And gender yoke
Seen weak though
We were strong as a rock.

Things taking
A positive turn,
When people about
Women's potential
Came to learn,
Enjoying a level ground
And expertise,
An outshining
Women farmers
We have beg...

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‘It’s my skin,’ she said,

But he still shook his head.

Did she not understand

The risk entailed? Once the

Fine pale surface was broken,

There was no going back.

The permanency of a foreign body

Worming its way beneath

Her flesh - this he could not 

Permit. For her own good.

 

Though he paid no heed

To the multicoloured rings

And patterns that each faded

Fr...

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Here we ask is the media and the cosmetics industry as oppressive to women as the Islamic burqua?

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