Politicised Transience
This article was originally published in German. The English version is an automatic translation and may contain errors. The German original is authoritative.
I am ready for the transience of the politicisation of my body hair:
For the transience of your gazes on my legs and under my arms.
Can you stop looking and I'll stop shaving?
And before anyone cries out that one is allowed to perceive what one wants, because the legs are there and the hair on top of them too.
What is supposed to be seen, if not what is being seen?
One can look and perceive and all that.
When was the last time your gaze fell upon a man's leg and his hair caught in your eyes?
When was the last time your gazes glided over a man's legs?
When was the last time your gaze lingered on a man's leg hair?
What did you think, what were your conclusions about him?
Did his leg hair alone lead you to conclude the opinion that exists within him?
Depoliticise my body and I will depoliticise your gaze.
Don't misunderstand me, I am political, and I think exactly what you see in or on me.
I want to see the meadow of radical diversity bloom before me and bury the eyes of the disrespectful beneath it.
I want to see the feminism of intersectionality rise and spread its wings.
And I want to feel the air of the wind on my leg hair and know what I stand for.
But I also want to see my thinking bound to my words and not to my hair.
Grant me the aesthetics of my body, so I grant you those of yours.
Leg hair beside leg hair, shaved legs included too,
only presumably,
will not be mine.