New Times,
New Thinking.

10 January 2014updated 28 Jun 2021 4:46am

Why having a woman’s body under patriarchy is a job in itself

"Deodorant for breasts" is the latest addition to the shame cycle of having a female body.

By Frances Ryan

I’ve known for some time a lot of people are obsessed with my breasts. The fight to defend my right to put them in a national newspaper. The fight to defend my right to have them visible to children on a shelf in the Co-op.  The complexity of whether going out with them attached to my chest means I’m asking for them to be groped. The disgust if I get them out to feed my hypothetical baby. The disgust if I don’t get them out to feed my hypothetical baby. . .

It’s all resulted in me having very little idea what I should be doing with them on an hourly basis. Even now, they’re just sitting here. Two awkward half melons waiting to know what the latest thing is they’ve done wrong and what they should be doing to fix it to finally make everyone else happy.

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