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Men Out There (2003 remake)
Note: this was written in 1995 for a celebration of the
anniversary of winning women's suffrage. I have remade it as a
general monologue. I will keep re-making it as time goes on.
.
You men out there: you've shown real strength,
Listening to me go on at length
About women this and women that
Almost as if the other half
(Well ... 48%) of the human race
Wasn't worth the time or space
They occupy.
Stop surreptitiously checking your watches,
Hands instinctively covering crotches,
Inspecting your nails, rearranging your shoes.
It's understandable: you're confused.
And your father's father and his dad's dad
And his pop's papa and all the lads
And their uncles, sons and brothers, too,
Probably felt the same as you -
Confused.
From where we're at, here's how it looks:
Long before the time of books,
Women were magic, women were mystery.
Way before the start of history
Before space travel and megacities
Females were heading planning committees.
Wise women (now called witches)
And powerful women (now called bitches)
Managed life and death and birth,
Cared and shared with Planet Earth.
When the Golden Age came to a stop,
There were the men, up on top.
I guess it starts with lust and love
Where a man spends a lot of time up above.
But somehow women got re-defined
And got accustomed to tagging behind,
Got used to living by manners and graces
And being judged by our figures and faces.
Before long you were peeling our bananas
Opening doors for us, moving our pianos.
(For which we are thankful!)
Then you got busy - you had a ball,
Making, breaking, rearranging it all.
The Taj Mahal, the game of chess,
Safety pins, the printing press,
Chemotherapy, burglar alarms,
Money, ice cream, nuclear arms,
X-rays, battery farms,
Wired bras, designer cars,
Opera houses, disco bars,
GE foods, Viagra, Aids,
Computers & endless upgrades.
Income tax, revolving doors,
Glass ceilings, wars ... and wars.
Mozart, Lenin, Picasso, Descartes -
Charting the stars, transplanting hearts ...
We all admit that you've done wonders,
And if at times they seem like blunders
And look like a recipe for global death
Women everywhere will have to accept
That we didn't stop you or slap your hand
As we travelled the road to No-Man's Land.
Still - you're up there in the driver's seat
And we're down here with the balance sheet.
We're answering a question you didn't ask:
We want to go forward into a past
Where humans were part of a natural whole,
Where we didn't hunt, exploit or control
Every plant and animal species,
Where we didn't cover the world with faeces
Of one sort or another.
I think most women have a different take
On human affairs and men's mistakes.
Warring men are on a roll
Things are spinning out of control
And something's got to be done
Women will have to do itl
(Eleanor Roosevelt said that when I was just a kid.)
There's the vote & but if you play by the letter
You can only hope to make a bad system better.
As women living in the world of man
We'll have to use every tool we can
To haul humans out of history's rut.
Perhaps we should withold you-know-what &
After all, it's what men really REALLY want
And if every woman of every country
Just said "No!". Not until "!"
You'd be amazed at what the weaker sex will
Or won't do for THAT.
We need to take action, need to make noise,
Take the toys from the men and boys
And re-examine race, religion, nations,
Law, love, education,
Social, economic, marital relations,
Science, government, assumptions, attitudes,
Divisive jokes, self-satisfied platitudes,
In short - everything under creation.
Women will have to FORCE the issues.
You men out there: it's a crying shame
That for what some of you do, you ALL get the blame.
Still, it might feel good, this time of change,
Of re-direction & It does feel strange.
It'll get less so hour by hour,
If you just remember: it isn't easy relinquishing power.
US WOMEN
WE KNOW
