Teenage girls win talent contest with a stunning piece of feminist poetry
Skrekkur is an extremely popular annual talent contest in Reykjavik for students aged 14 and 15. This year's grand finale took place last night with eight schools contending for the first prize, which went to Hagaskóli in West Reykjavik.
All schools presented excellent pieces, tinged with the social and political issues of today including themes like global warming, waste, drug abuse, rape culture and feminism.
Hagaskóli presented a stunning piece which combined feminist poetry and dance and embodied the recent feminist revolutions in Iceland which included #freethenipple and #þöggun which aims to unsilence the victims of sexual abuse.
The piece was written, choreographed and styled entirely by the girls themselves.
The award for the winning entry was presented by Mayor Dagur B.Eggertsson.
Here are a few lines from the piece written by the girls translated into English by Iceland Monitor:
I was ten years old when I was first called "whore"
I didn't understand why, now I understand
I was in the way, I was bossy,
I crossed the line, I tried to break out from my box,
But I was small, I was a girl.
Dear girls,
Be careful,
Don't take up the space reserved for boys
If you have a penis you'll get an extra square metre
Don't make demands for yourselves to be intelligent, you deserve less.
Dress as I want you to
Keep to your corner
Put on more make up, put on less make up
Put yourself down.
-----
Calm down, stop making so much noise
Aren't you just on your period or something?
Careful! You'll scare the boys away,
You're talking too much.
Stop it, you know better,
"You're not always right"
Be polite, don't be awkward
Don't get me into an uncomfortable situation,
Don't fucking swear!
Be sensible, work hard,
pick up the mess others leave behind,
Lose yourself.
Forget that you matter,
disappear.
Be pretty, be sexy,
But don't cross the line.
You know what happens
If you show too much.
So for God's sake don't send him "pictures"
Because you, your breasts, your body and everything that you are
Is dirty and ugly and forbidden
And not something to share with others
Not even with yourself.
Dear patriarchy,
You know that when you tell me to calm down,
And to shut up,
You drive me onwards,
to scream at the top of my lungs,
You can't stop what you know is coming,
You don't know the hardship, you're not a woman.
You all look up to the stage and can't see any boys,
And you think: Where's the equality in this?
We want to know: Where's the equality anywhere?
Where are women in the world as a whole?
There are women here, on this stage, right now
But some people always have to look for the boys.
The accompanying video is courtesy of Skjárinn,
