The Vagenda

If, by Mses Kipling

If you can keep your figure when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when Grazia doubts you,
But make allowance for their wishes too;
If you can diet, and yield to their berating,
Or, when baking cupcakes, not eat a single one,
And, love being single, but wish that you were dating,
And yet don’t look
too good, or be having too much fun;


If you can dream – but dream a smaller dress size;
If you can be too thin and yet too fat;
If in the middle they do meet, then they’re not good thighs
You should be aiming for a gap;
If you can work, but not make work your master,
be both mother and au-pair,
if you can bake, sew, solder and replaster,
while ensuring you’re all trimmed ‘down there’; 


If you can have a painless natural birth,
breastfeed your child, and be the perfect mother,
And regain your figure, maintain your sense of worth,
And yet feel worthless, with your belly undercover;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To the waxing salon once or twice a week,
And find the perfect man to put it in you

yet retain that feminine mystique;


If you can look like a hooker yet keep your virtue,
Or dress in Prada –but not lose the common touch;
If neither feminists nor other women can hurt you;
If all men want to shag you, but none too much;
If you can down a cocktail in a minute
and after six repress the need to hurl-
Yours is the Daily Mail and everything that’s in it,
But – which is more –they’ve got you where they want you, girl.



@lucyetlapin and @vagendamagazine

3 thoughts on “If, by Mses Kipling

  1. Printed! And stuck to the noticeboard in my flat. I’ve been telling anyone who will listen about the Vagenda – keep up the FANTASTIC work.

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