Belly Dancer By Diane Wakoski

In reading Diane Wakoski's " Belly Dancer," I get the feeling that this poem is about a woman's liberation. The speaker or the belly dancer is speaking about how the belly dancer moves her body so freely and how the fabrics on her body make her body feel good.The speaker also talks about the uptight women who watch this free spirit of a belly dancer mover her body to the awakening rhythms. The uptight women are women who repress their desires and their wants. They are modern and contemporary in the ways they dress but their minds are stuck in an old school mentality. These women feel they should act a certain way because society has told them to do so, so they repress their feelings, their desires and their wants to adhere to a "man's world." The uptight women frown, or look away, or laugh stiffly. They are afraid of these materials and these moves, they are afraid it may awaken a deep desire they've repressed for so long that even their husbands couldn't satisfy. The dancer is really scorning the men not doing it for their satisfaction. The belly dancer wants to awaken these women and make them feel more liberated in their ways and be freer to do as they feel. Overall i really liked this poem and I feel that in todays society, there are still women like this. Today is a more liberal time to live in but there are still pressures on women to act a certain way and to adhere to certain goals by certain ages such as, finding a perfect man, getting married, having kids, and so on and so forth.. Where in today's day, nto every woman would agree with that standard of life. There are a lot of women who are single mothers, never got married, or women who are lesbians, or women who chose to live different lifestyles. I think everyone should be able to live they way they want without the pressures of society to be or act or even look a certain way. I think women should continue to be more liberal in their ways of life and shouldn't be afraid to be who they truly are.