Break The Ceiling

Carrie Rudzinski

When I was six years old

I broke my thumb
playing goalie
in an all girls soccer league

because if you were a child

in Northern Illinois in the ‘90s
you spent your summers
watching the horizon grow dark
and playing soccer

For 14 years I sweated

through broken toes and bruised knees
my lungs an anthem of yes
the sky a bruise we swelled for

To be a girl is to play
like you have something to prove
so we broke ourselves
as if our bodies were pomegranates

When I was 16
I was tackled so many times
in one game I sprained
both my ankles and couldn’t
walk the next day

One of my toes is still permanently bent

from a little girl who kicked me
head on while she smiled and said Good game

In 2019 the captains of the US Women’s

Championship Soccer Team
were asked on national television
if women were more polite on the field
than men
because to win as a woman
is to always be reminded you are a woman

They call it
women’s soccer
women’s push ups
women’s basketball

They ask

Who’s your favourite

female character
female comedian
female athlete

because to be a woman
is to be gendered in everything you do

12% of men in the UK said they thought

they could score a point
against Serena Williams

because we’ll call Lebron the greatest athlete of our time

but Serena will only ever be a woman
and men will still believe they can beat her

They say
you’re pretty good
for a girl

They say
you run
like a girl

They say
you cry
like a girl
as if to be a woman
is to be soft and weak
powerless and small

The US Women’s National Soccer Team

scored more goals in one World Cup game
than the Men’s team has scored in all of their
World Cup appearances combined

and the women were told

they were too arrogant
too proud
too political
too boisterous

because to be a woman
is to be told you are too much
and not enough in the same breath

Our whole lives

they’ve told us to

be stronger
be softer
be smarter
be sexier
be less
be more

but they have been underestimating my existence

since before I was born / since they named me girl /
since I was a bruised lip on a soccer field at dusk

They forget I have been bleeding since I was 12 years old

I’ve learnt strength in silence / every woman

I know is an act of resilience / a lesson
in who I want to become / a reminder
to demand what I am worth
We shouldn’t have to play better than the men
in order to be paid equally to them
but to be a woman
is to do everything Fred Astaire does
backwards and in heels

To be a woman is to sue
the US Soccer Federation
for gender discimination
and equal pay while you win
your fourth World Cup

cause when your whole life

has been a double standard

you learn to play harder

and make it look effortless

you learn to be dangerous

while smiling

you learn to be the change

you have been waiting for

Because somewhere in the world

a little girl is learning to kick
the shit out of someone else
while playing soccer

and she deserves to grow up

in a better world than you did.