Bridget Minamore is a 20-year-old writer and student from London who has won numerous poetry slams across the capital, including respected spoken word events Farrago and Hammer & Tongue.
In addition to being a regular on the slam scene, she has performed at 10 Downing Street and the King’s College Cambridge Women’s Dinner and is a member of poetry collectives Rubix and Point Blank Poets.
Here, to mark International Women's Day 2012, she gives an exclusive performance of her poem Hypocrites And Double Ds, a piece she wrote while working with a group of teenage girls in a drama workshop.
"We discussed role models and realised we couldn't think of one female celebrity who had unanimously positive press," Bridget explains.
"For me, International Women's Day is about highlighting the problems women face and celebrating the positive female role models we have already.
"There are so many issues women have to face, both in our country and around the world, that are dismissed as something we just have to 'deal with'.
"Well I don't want to deal with anything. Inequality is inequality and the fact it exists should be a problem for everyone - men and women."
Hypocrites & DD’s
Let’s pretend for a minute I’m a female celebrity on the TV.
As woman in our society, I’m expected to be 20 years younger than my male co-host but I’m still told I dress too slutty if I show cleavage on Saturday night TV.
Basically in our society, me & my boobs have got to be Holly Willoughby.
Or maybe I’d be Natasha Kaplinsky the newsreader.
Champion for the working woman who can win Strictly Come Dancing and be the highest paid female news host in modern history,
before I go on too much maternity leave,
then abandon my kids with a nanny to come back to the show before leaving the show to stay home with the kids and so ultimately,
I’m a disappointment on all three counts.
And if I pretend for a second I’m a singer, like Adele.
I can sell millions upon millions of records, but every news article describes me as 'curvy', or 'plus-sized', or 'fuller-figured' -
All of which are true, arguably -
But you never have descriptions of the weight of male singers.
Or maybe I can be a woman in a newspaper.
‘Cos in our society I’ve gotta have perfect hair, shiny teeth, and have an easy name like Sophie, or Jessica.
20 years old from Manchester my news in briefs adorn page 3,
Convincing you that you & me have mutual interests in common.
Apart from the things on my chest.
A box by my head
To say I’ve said I’m not happy about tuition fees or VAT rises.
In our society I’ve got to know about politics while showing off my double D’s and accept those two things empower me & make me a feminist –
But remember, being a feminist is a bad thing because then obviously a lesbian who doesn’t wear a bra.
In our society, I can be a woman in a magazine like Naomi Campbell, aka the Black Model Italian Vogue puts on the cover after they’re accused of being racist.
And they’d have to ask me twice, because the first time I decline being the token black girl I’m told I think too much of myself and I rejected a chance to further enhance the black female model cause.
But the second time I’m asked and I agree, I’m told I’m enforcing black stereotypes by wearing a leopard-print bikini so basically, I hate my own race
And don’t deserve to be the famous face of black female models.
But at the same time I’ve gotta be Tyra Banks.
Second in command of the Famous Female Ethnic Models society, which at the moment only really has two members -
Me and Naomi
Because apparently any more black female faces might make Gucci or Prada explode.
And when they decide to make me look like the other models, Vibe magazine says: I’m letting them make me look white, with too much weave on my head and clever lighting at my photo shoots to make my nose look smaller, and after all that, when I leave my natural hair out I’m told it’s too messy.
Then I complain and I’m told that I’m expected to take criticism as that’s what I signed up for when I wanted to be famous
And you can’t take it back love so get over it.
Forgetting the fact you wouldn’t say the same things to a man.
In our society I have to be Jennifer Aniston,
Aging apparently too quickly, the jilted wife whose husband left me because apparently I didn’t want to have a baby.
In our society I have to be Angelina Jolie.
Give money to charity but I’m still a home wrecking husband stealer with far too many kids.
But in our society I don’t have to be Brad Pitt
Because in our society, there is no way he could ever be responsible for his marriage break-up.
In our society I have to be Kate Moss.
So I’ll have the perfect figure for everything in Topshop but the newspapers say I enforce and promote anorexia.
Two pages after a pull-out on my latest celebrity party.
And it’s a good thing as a woman I can multi-task, because that’s all women can do, as in our society
I’ve gotta be Beth Ditto too,
Loving my curves and being proud that I’m a ‘real woman’ because anyone below a size 12 isn't, but still too fat for anything but Evans on the high street because my weight’s a bad thing;
I’m enforcing and promoting obesity say the magazines.
But don’t worry, it gets better,
‘Cos in our society I could be like Cheryl Cole, basically, seen as perfect in the media on all counts.
And I can do that easily;
Flick my hair back while fluttering my fake eyelashes and judging people singing badly
Because I’m loved by the British.
The Nation’s Sweetheart.
Let’s just hope I don’t get the phase before that, where I’m weak and pathetic for taking my cheating husband back,
Or the phase before that, when I’m a racist thug for beating up a black woman in a nightclub or the phase before that,
When I’m the third best slash worst singer in a TV band that has men watching our videos because we all take our clothes off and only 7 year old girls know the words to my songs.
And God knows, I better not get the phase after all of those,
When I’ve got a girl deported, lost my job, failed at life and been kicked face-first out of America.
And I know all that is a little bit sarcastic, so I’m sorry.
But being a woman in our society isn’t so easy, and I get angry.
See, in our society, we glamourise women.
We idolise women.
In our society, we tell women we can have it all, and at the same time tell women we have too much, and pride comes before a fall.
In our society, you’re either virgin or a whore.
Beautiful or Heat magazine feature-worthy eyesore.
In our society, women are equally adored, and victimized.
Told our clothes are too tight but still looked at with appreciating eyes, I know it’s not right but it’s how it is.
Bitch slapped on one cheek so you can give me a kiss on the other side – our society doesn’t see things clearly, our society’s a little bit blind.
In our society, we have to be celebrities, but at the same time, we’ve gotta be wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers and any combination of the above, not to mention the criticism we get for simply never being good enough.
It’s too much sometimes, and I’m sorry if I look at things with negative eyes, but I’m sick of it.
I don’t fit into it.
See in our society, I don’t wanna be a celebrity, in our society I wanna be me.
But it's not so easy. What chance have I got if I can’t think of a famous woman treated fairly by the media or not condemned by other ladies?
Saying the same old miserable things.
In magazines, it’s: 'too fat', 'too thin', stars without make-up so she’s hideous.
Advertisements on tv screens, eat Kellog's cardboard for just 3 weeks so you too can fit into a shit red dress.
Lose baby weight with little stress and c-sections make you less of a woman.
Four kids, three men, twice divorced so she’s a slag.
Our society says equal opportunities, but we still judge as much as we ever have.
In our society we fight for equal rights but we still hide behind our criticism and we give unasked advice, and I am sick of it.
I won’t fit into it.
I’m not prepared to be a faceless pair of page 3 walking tits, it isn’t me to look down at my feet and wait my turn to speak, I know I’m not the simple sexy girl with boobs but without brains and I refuse to dance round poles to prove what I can’t bear to say.
I’m not asking for role models, although they’d be nice, you see,
I’m just looking for fair play.