What makes a lady a lady?
Because the alternative term for lady is gentlewoman,
and gentlewoman sounds weird and fuzzy.

I know I’m supposed to make that last sentence rhyme,
but it’s really hard for ladies to do things sometimes.
Surely you’ll agree that the women receive less than men – the dimes.
And have you ever noticed that outside the female bathroom there are always lines?

Society tells you that a lady has fair skin,
a sharp chin and a loose grin,
her figure just as thin as a Boleyn,
and when she turns, her dress spins,
her hair held up with bobby pins.
You’ll see her flowing in the wind,
but really, do you know the world she’s living in?

They’d tell you to
put your legs down and sit like a lady should.
You gotta behave like a lady would.
Ladies should stay in the kitchen and not chop wood,
because chopping wood won’t do you any good.

Chopping wood will chip your nails off,
but men don’t have long nails so they take their clothes off.
Why is it okay for men to take their clothes off
but when ladies do that the elderly usually scoff?

They’d tell you that
Ladies wearing a skirt
belong in the kitchen scrubbing off dirt.
After the entrée they bring men dessert,
and eye contact they had to avert.

Ladies being polite were treated like flirts,
like someone put up a big, grand concert
saying that all ladies are invited,
but inside men awaited.

Ladies are raped, abused, offended, and used,
but ladies were told to keep their mouths shut,
or the trouble that comes will be further induced.

So ladies wipe their tears and sew their ears,
for when the people question about this cruel oppression,
they never ask what the gentleman was wearing in that occasion.
It’s always what the lady was wearing that had led to this situation.

And when the lady speaks she faces aggression, suppression–
mediation turns into litigation.
Her bravery is rewarded with suspicion
because in the courtroom, nobody listens to reason.

Ladies walk home holding keys in caution
They’re told it’s illegal to get abortions
Every lady’s figure is subjected to judgment
Until the day she lies in a coffin–

Her eyes closed, heart no longer beating
Yet vultures pick at her, you’ll hear them saying:

“Look! Her nose isn’t very high.
Look! Her waist isn’t very tight.
Look! Her weight isn’t very light.
Does she dress like this at night?

Look! Her chest is way too flat.
Look! Her hips are so fat.
Look! Her teeth are like rats’.
Must’ve been crazy as a bat!”

Ladies are taught that if a man is mean,
then he likes her and wishes to be in her dream.
There’s a saying that hitting is loving
and scolding is loving. That’s not true.
That is just to prevent ladies from fighting back
like wine bottles with corkscrews.

If a man is rude, you step away;
and if they call you names don’t even try to stay.
You call the shots, and you pull the trigger,
for no lady deserves to be treated any lesser.

In some places, still, many things a lady is denied –
her rights to vote and her rights to drive.
No one ever said ladies were born just to die,
it’s just that no one ever taught them the right way to fight for life.

Common sense that if you don’t fight you’ll die,
but ladies are portrayed as lovers not fighters.
Then how can ladies fight for what they love,
if the gentlemen show them there’s nothing else to life than being their wife?

To sit in a couch,
knitting a pouch,
to never be loud,
because if you’re loud then he’ll shout.

And if she tries to walk out,
he’ll grab her, no doubt,
and lock the doors, shut the window,
because when talking to a gentleman a lady should never say no.

I think it’s very funny the way ladies are treated at parliaments.
The way men shut down their arguments.
It’s like they don’t matter and the words they say are nonsense.
But how can it be nonsense if it’s coming from
the mouths of someone who busts their butts off
pots and pans and shoes in sands and mud and land and grease and damn!

I think it’s unfair how when they go out for a day,
the gentleman always thinks he has to pay.
Be it March, April or May, be it a Broadway date or a café,
he somehow constantly gets the last say.
Is that even fair play?

We speak of moral codes and chivalry.
Chivalry is the medieval system with its code for knights,
but if a man is only chivalrous at night,
he ain’t no knight! You might as well put up a fight.
I’ve seen ladies in satin dresses, red and all.
They are beanstalk tall and stay at home instead of going to balls.
I’ve seen them twirl cards between their fingers,
the perfume scent lingers,
as the card gets swiped,
and the lady smiles with delight.

See, it seems blown out of proportion that
gentlemen put on ties and suits.
They run on clouds chasing after their childish pursuits
to dominate the household, the workforce, the world, even the bedroom too.
TV advertisements and propaganda will tell you
that ladies are incapable of all the things men do.
But ladies and gentlemen,
ladies can bleed and lead,
while men can only lead.

Gentlemen.
Why are they called gentlemen when they’re not even gentle?
The synonym of ladies is women, and women don’t need men.
That’s just a common misconception that people like to pen.
See, men might get things right and done,
but ladies get things right and done the first time!

Ladies and gentlemen. 
The word ladies comes first.
Ridiculous how when it comes to power, money, position and rights,
the gentlemen come first!
They’ve got to quench their thirst–
Thirst of being one step higher on the ladder–
The ladder than proves they are better–
Better than the ladies, and better than the men
But when they reach the very top, what will happen then?

***

There’s a lady everyone talks about all year long,
but everybody keeps getting her story wrong.

She was born to her mother,
never met her father.
So when her mother was locked up in institutions
that left her parentless, just an orphan.
Going house to house she had eleven foster parents.
And as if not having a family wasn’t punishment enough,
she was sexually assaulted and all those bad stuff.
Fighting for her life, she married a man who thought
she was his queen at sixteen.
Her life still wasn’t stable, the marriage started to crumble,
and after four years, she finally gave in and signed the papers.
In 1944 she stepped out of the dark.
She dyed her hair, rewrote her name, and got photographed stark.
Our lady was paid a mere fifty dollar bill to pose for what will become
the Playboy magazine cover without her knowing.
Because years later Hefner will pay ten times what she got
and she’ll wish that in her young days her mother could’ve just smothered her
with a pillow and all of this would’ve never started.

Based on a picture people started to depict her.
The media painted her as a sex icon,
a lady every man had their eye on.
Her hair’s no longer brown, it’s blonde,
and the spotlights were all on her, brightly shone.
But, in her heart, she was insecure–
didn’t understand what she was living for.
Our lady was typecast and underpaid by the studio;
they made her wear outfits that hung quite low,
and the one time she posed for a photo,
her dress, in an updraft, started to flow.
That became the Marilyn Monroe we know.

She was just another victim of objectification,
a tradition started by men long before the pyramids were built and–
married thrice, disappointed her whole life.
Unappreciated for her advocates and thoughts,
not taken seriously nor recognized for the lady she sought.
At only thirty-six she changed the game,
paid the price one pays for fame.
She hid the depression and anxiety
so when people came knocking on her door they wouldn’t suspect a thing.
When she consumed barbiturates,
she handed over her fate,
and gave in to her scars,
but that didn’t end the legacy
of the lady whose name is now on a star.

From her movies she grossed two-hundred million,
had an intelligence quotient much higher than the average person.
After Mary Pickford she was the second lady to have
her very own production house.
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson,
she was the lady who never became the lady she wanted to be,
but after her life, she showed everyone a true lady is not just what you see.

But that’s just the beginning of notches on the belt.
We have other ladies, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Audrey Hepburn, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Ladies who deserve a place to stand,
ladies who need to be on the bill you hold in your hands.

I’m here to tell you today
and there’s no such thing as it being wrong–
Ladies belong where men belong.
Everywhere.
Anywhere.
Today.
Yesterday.
Tomorrow.
And forever.