Census Blank

A solid voice
On an old archive recording
The passionate words
A now past crusade

A tenacious battle to overcome inequity
Against an oppressing, conservative, religious, patriarchal society
Her impregnable voice, their account of injustice
Their reality, almost tangible

Exposed to a mass
Of superficial, un-stimulating knowledge
The valued information
Was an exhaustive list on how to please

Experts telling how to catch a husband
How to cope with sibling rivalry, adolescent rebellion
How to cook, dress, and look and act more graciously
Taught to pity the ones who reached out
For greater means, for greater means

And all over the medias
The cheap magazines
The surrealistic heroine
The glossy image of the american happy housewife

Re-enforcing the time mentality
That a true woman did not desire a career
Higher education or political rights
Was it painful to give up those dreams?
To leave behind hopes of becoming unique?

Voluntary
Voluntary confinement in these neat and tidy houses
The central heart of their existence (their existence)
With narrow roles and little impact out of the family cell
Seeking for perfection within these boundaries (these boundaries)

Was that any fulfilling?
Did their ever had a moment of hesitation?
Or always wrote proudly on the census blank?

How could the right to vote could ever seem like a possible threat
To the family, the family system and the religious faith?
You were fighting for basic freedoms
Swallowed by religious dogmas

And the problem laid, buried, unspoken for so long
Like a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction
A yearning that they suffered and strangled with alone
Afraid to ask even of themselves the silent question, "Is this all?"

A few fought and brought down barriers towards advancement
Encouraged civil disobedience
While the rest
With nothing to look forward to
Blotted out their feelings with tranquilizers