a woman’s fi rst sin by Kien-Ling Liem

a woman’s first sin

Words by Kien-Ling Liem / Illustration by Melana Uceda [CW: sexual violence, self-harm, miscarriage, and blood]

anger. it is a woman’s first sin. it is the woman that always first sins – eve.

i am tired. i am tired of the hand over my mouth and underneath my skirt.

i am tired but not defeated. this fight - it is not about fighting. it is about solidarity, a solidarity that we may never achieve, but it is a goal i will never stop fighting for until my head lies on the soil of my grave.

i think, as women, we are raised to be blamed. we are the fault of society. maybe the seed in your body, the way your stomach is the size of a balloon and stretches your skin till it’s purple – it has died. your body failed to cultivate the seed of life. you bear the fault.

maybe the moon has waned and waxed too far. the crops are dying. it is the witch’s doing.

we are raised to be blamed from the instance of eve. eve is the original sinner and adam her witness, the companion, but never the perpetrator. eve was too tempted, adam not tempted enough. the apple was eve’s fault.

you put on a nice dress. sure, it reveals parts of your chest and a lot of your thighs. but you look good. the men in the room look at you differently, and for some sick reason, that makes you feel better about yourself. but it’s time to go, so you step out the door to make your way home alone. and suddenly that dress you’re wearing doesn’t seem so nice. it’s sexy in the wrong way. suddenly the way that men look at you on the street doesn’t feel so good anymore. their gaze feels animalistic. they have eyes of a tiger and claws for hands, and they’re snarling at you. they’re growling for you, barking at you to come home with them. some of them think it’s funny. you’re the prey and they’re the predator. you’re the victim, yet the narrative doesn’t seem that way, because why were you walking alone in the dark? why were you wearing that dress in the first place if you didn’t want that attention? it’s your fault. men will be men - they can’t help themselves. you can’t control them, but you wish you could.

you’re wearing that sexy dress in a club. it’s dark. drinks are spilling on the floor and down people’s throats. you make eye contact with a man - whether it was accidental does not matter. he approaches you with the intent of dancing with you, touching you, putting his lips on yours and his hands on your waist and taking you home. he comes up behind you and pulls you, puts his mouth on your neck and sways his hips against yours. you can feel his parts on yours. you feel dirty, contaminated. shame courses through you for everyone having seen you being touched like that. you feel like your body isn’t yours anymore - it’s a man’s. it belongs to them. theirs to touch, to see, to possess, and to discard when he wants to. to him, i am simply a failed opportunity. to me, his presumptions are a violation.

a man

you’re at a club. the lights are dark, the music is loud. you’ve had one too many drinks yet you swallow the sour liquid in your hand. your friends are in the corner, telling you you should get a girl. it’ll be a good opportunity. so you make your way onto the floor and observe your selection. not that one, she’s too tall. not that one either - she’s got too much weight on her bones. then your eyes fall upon a girl with a short, black dress. her cleavage is showing. her lips are plump and pink and her eyes dark. her waist is cinched in that dress and rides just slightly up her thighs. you want to bring her home, but you’re not sure if she wants the same thing. but what’s the harm in trying? so you weave your way through the crowd. you’re attractive enough. she won’t be able to say no. you put your hands on her waist - she’s the perfect height to rest your mouth against her neck. you imagine biting her neck the way lions bite their prey before consuming them. the sheer thought of that turns you on. you’re so into it that it doesn’t matter if she’s not, so you keep going, but she pushes you away. you’re confused, and that slight tinge of rejection pulls at your heart. but it’s fine. there will be other women for you to bite their necks with.

adam was tempted and just like eve, he gave in. he tried to take what wasn’t his. but it is all still eve’s fault. — — —

going home, my mind is cast back to how this has been the basis of so much of society since the ancient Greeks and Romans. Plato and Aristotle did not think women were human. their definition of humanity was narrowed, and women excluded. times may have since changed but misogyny holds, and what is important is that it once was like this. because what was once, becomes what is now. beliefs don’t just go away. they trickle down.

i have many things to say, but never a voice loud enough to say it. it shakes and cracks until it falls through the gaps of my fingers and all that i am left with is shards of glass words that lie at my feet. the glass pools beneath me. the pieces become sharp with criticism and shine with shame. the more i grasp at my splintered words, the more they cut my hands. my own words turn on me. my voice is hurting me. my throat itches from the screaming. i can feel the blood rise in my throat. and my hands they bleed and bleed and bleed until it drips down to my feet, and all that i am left with is a pool of my broken words drowning in the anger of my own blood. intelligible. incomprehensible. so utterly useless.

as a woman all i want is to be taken seriously. i am strangled by own uterus, my own fallopian tubes.