Things They Told Her

They told Joan of Arc she was just a girl.

That heaven does not speak to women,

that armor was made for men.

That war was no place for soft hands,

for delicate bones,

for voices that did not shake.

They struck the match anyway.

She did not scream.

They told Cleopatra to sit down.

To smile pretty, to play nice,

to remember that a woman’s crown

is only hers until a man takes it.

They feared her voice,

her power, her mind sharper than any dagger.

They rewrote her story—

called her seductress instead of strategist,

called her dangerous instead of divine.

They told Frida Kahlo that pain should be hidden,

that suffering should be swallowed whole.

They called her too strange,

too messy,

too much.

But she painted her own portrait,

every wound in bold color,

every scar an unspoken rebellion.

They told Rosa Parks to move.

To stand, to yield,

to know her place.

But she planted herself like a tree,

roots gripping the earth,

branches stretching toward justice,

a single word shaking the ground beneath her feet.

No.

They told Malala Yousafzai to be silent.

That girls with books were dangerous,

that knowledge in a woman’s hands

was a weapon too sharp to be allowed.

They tried to break her.

But she rose,

spoke,

stood.

She did not ask for her voice back—

she took it.

They told Harriet Tubman that freedom was not hers to have,

that chains were meant to be worn,

not broken.

They told her to stay in the dark,

but she became the light,

a whisper in the night,

a force too fierce to be stopped.

She did not walk to freedom.

She ran—and brought others with her.

They told Amelia Earhart to stay on the ground,

that the sky was no place for a woman.

That adventure belonged to men,

that her wings were meant to be clipped.

But she soared,

high enough to be legend,

high enough to remind the world

that fear has never built anything that flies.

They told Serena Williams to be quiet,

to be humble,

to be grateful for the space they let her occupy.

They called her too strong,

too angry,

too loud.

But she swung anyway,

a racket, a revolution,

a legacy written in sweat and triumph.

They told Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the law was not for women,

that justice was not meant to be served by hands like hers.

They underestimated her.

She built her own seat at the table,

wrote her name in decisions

that reshaped the world.

She did not ask for change.

She made it.

They tell us, still.

Be soft.

Be small.

Do not climb too high,

do not speak too loud,

do not forget that the world

was built for men.

But we are built of fire.

Of steel and ink and war cries.

We have always been queens,

fighters, revolutionaries.

We have always written our names

into history’s unwilling hands.

So let them tell us to sit down.

We will stand.

Let them tell us to be silent.

We will roar.