SAINT TWENTY

Celebrate the female body. I adore these cut outs, wood sculptures, and paintings by artist Hiba Schahbaz. Putting the female form front & center. We should be praised for enduring different phases of pain and discomfort men couldn’t tolerate, let alone survive. We have what? 11, 12 years of serenity before it takes us through there. Starting with menstruation, symptoms like cramps can be crippling, it’s a wonder we carry on with our quotidian activities. Bleeding monthly is anxiety inducing, especially in public spaces. The expansion of the uterus, bloating, shifts in mood and hormones. If we’re not bleeding we’re pregnant, the home to human life. Our bodies giving everything to create. Whatever nutrients the baby doesn’t have is drained from the mother, calcium from the teeth, if malnourished.

Giving birth puts a foot in the grave. Contractions are extremely painful, pushing can cause hemorrhoids and do permanent damage to the pelvic floor. Leaving women to pee themselves or have their organs fall out of their vaginas. Not to mention stitching the perineum when there’s tearing. The alternative is a c section, cutting through layers of the abdomen to get to the uterus. Both leave women healing for six weeks minimum. The recovery is brutal, yet women serve their babies selflessly from that same broken body.

Men don’t get fibroids. A perk of menopause, another uncomfortable transition, is the impossibility of having these benign tumors. The patriarchy falsely believing they know what’s best for a woman’s body, when they’ll never experience what it goes through is unconscionable. Abortion is a human right, period. My body, my choice. It’s not explicitly mentioned in the bible, which in larger part is written but the Devil and his minions. He’s a mostly gay misogynist. Nor do Divines consider it a baby the first three months you dumb fucks, or it’d be able to survive outside the uterus at that point. When religion took over, women stopped being viewed as sacred, and appreciated for being the gateway between this world and the next. The Divine Feminine erased. That’s finished. A Goddess has entered the chat. Every creature comes from a female. You will respect us or burn eternal for it, Kali & Shiva. Via: Hiba_Schahbaz

Updated: 10/25/2026 10:55pm