A Woman is Often Measured...

When I was attending university for the first time the world was suddenly a much bigger place. It was 1991, and I was living three hours away from home and lived in residence with a total stranger. Though freeing, it was completely scary- I was no longer sheltered from others and their ideas, opinions, and viewpoints. People, it seemed, expected me to have a sudden firm stance on who I was and what I wanted to become. I felt lost. I compensated by surrounding myself with all that I could identify with...pictures of farm life, wild animals, sunsets, and this poem. The poem funny enough is a Nike advertisement out of some magazine I was reading at the time. It has never left me- literally. I still have the clipping, though it is tattered and worn- it's truth has never faded.

A WOMAN IS OFTEN MEASURED

BY THE THINGS SHE CANNOT CONTROL.

SHE IS MEASURED BY THE WAY HER BODY

CURVES OR DOESN'T CURVE,

BY WHERE SHE IS FLAT OR STRAIGHT OR ROUND.

SHE IS MEASURED BY 36-24-36

AND INCHES AND AGES AND NUMBERS,

BY ALL THE OUTSIDE THINGS

THAT DON'T EVER ADD UP

TO WHO SHE IS ON THE INSIDE.

AND SO IF A WOMAN IS TO BE MEASURED,

LET HER BE MEASURED BY

THE THINGS SHE CAN CONTROL,

BY WHO SHE IS

AND WHO SHE IS TRYING TO BECOME.

BECAUSE AS EVERY WOMAN KNOWS,

MEASUREMENTS ARE ONLY STATISTICS.

AND STATISTICS LIE.