FLINTA* Voices create space to speak without restriction, without dilution, and without apology. We opened our platform to FLINTA* writers and creators who confront and redefine gendered realities, who understand empowerment not as a trend, but as necessity, and who expose patriarchy not as abstraction, but as lived experience.

Bra

You promise me beauty
Attraction, affection

Together we fight
Gravity and age

Are you really supporting me
Or squeezing me into how you want me

Are you honoring my forms
Or denying my true self

Are you lifting me up
Or making it hard to breathe

Sometimes
You hurt me

Sometimes
You are heavy

Sometimes
You just don‘t fit

Sometimes
I can‘t wait to get away from you

Sometimes
I feel naked without you

You look all soft
With laces and paddings
But inside you contain
Metal wire, hard and cold
Piercing into my skin

Are you my armour
Protecting me
Holding me together
When I fall apart

Or are you my cage
Holding me captive
Keeping me small
Conditioning me

We know your tricks
But we wish to be tricked
Holding onto an illusional ideal
Of natural beauty

We hide you
Don‘t let you be seen
We hide ourselves
Our shapes, our shame

What grew naturally, meant to nurture
Is seen as inappropriate

We play with suggestion
Our curves, our pride, our privacy
The game of covering and revealing
Never gets old

Your ancestor was way worse, I know
Forming our whole body down to our spine
Making it hard to move
Weakening our Backbones
Breaking our ribs
Piercing our organs

In the name of beauty
For the sake of „love“
Our sole security to survive
In a society not interested in our voice
But in our body as a trophy
For fertility, work,
For amusement and obedience

We used to burn you
As a sign for our liberation

And yet you stayed
And yet I need you

I carry you close, daily
You feel my heartbeat
You feel my breathing
You move when I dance
You hold my tense shoulders
You are in my embraces

You promise me beauty
And hold up much more
Together we carry

Femininity
stringed and underwired

About the Author

Karin Arnet is a visual artist based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Her practice centers on acrylic painting, often incorporating textile techniques and mixed media. Words and poems accompany her visual work as an additional form of expression. Having spent part of her childhood in Japan, she draws inspiration from Wabi-Sabi — its embrace of imperfection and the cycle of becoming and passing — which continues to inform her visual language. Her narratives arise from her perspectives as a woman, mother, and educator — infused with a feminist hope for equity and healing. Through color and texture, she explores memory, identity, and the quiet power of growth and transformation.

@karynarnet