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La Grande Odalisque


I didn’t see a masterpiece. I saw Her.

I saw her 38 vertebrae,


her broken pelvis,

her impossibly lengthened arms.


I saw Her mutilated body, Her misery, Her degradation.

Not a painting, not an object, not a muse.


She was there,

tainted by centuries of eyes


watching her.

But never truly seeing Her.


Ages of men

observing her.


She gazes back,

Forever confined to Her cage


Her cage of one dimensionality,

Her cage of submission.


A pathetic portrayal

of a Woman.


Simply an object of eroticism

made to reflect


the image of a Woman

through a man’s eyes.


Still, She is there.

She always will be.


Watching, waiting

for someone to notice,


For someone to see Her.

one of the 28,000 pairs of eyes


Who inpect her each day

to notice Her.


Not the fine workmanship,

not the delicate brushstrokes,


not the odalisque depicted in the painting.

Her.


The Women of the world

See Her.


The Women not allowed to take up space.

The Women who have been dehumanised, defiled.


The Girls looking to media

And seeing nothing but objects, props, see Her too.


Needlessly sexualised women

Plaguing films with male directors


Everywhere She looks

There is nothing but her.


Women fashioned to men’s desires

Tormenting our society, our culture.


I see Her,

looking down on it all,


knowing it hasn’t changed

Only evolved.