I wish the women of the Congo
or Afghanistan or China or South Africa
didn’t need feminism and could stand
up on a pedestal with you because
you happened to win the geographical lotto.
Dismissing a whole way of thinking,
that could make lives better, isn’t
so easy when you’re living in the rape
capital of the world, being forced to
marry a stranger or being denied
sexual pleasure through mutilation.
If you put on your blinders, feminism
might seem like a relic of the suffragettes
which isn’t needed in your individual
experience. It’s nice you can walk
to Starbucks, spend your disposable
income on empty calories and feel
safe. Then you can go home to your
£400 laptop and even though you
have a more global view than anyone
else in history, you will still tweet about how
feminism is evil as if you’re
more important than other women.
Even if we shrunk it back down to our small island,
equality is still a delusion; these problems
are on our doorstep and, sure, if you put
your fingers in your ears then you can
block out the cries for help from the
four women next to you who have experienced
sexual violence and listen to how
the pay gap is a myth as if that’s the
most pressing issue. You can laugh
at feminists, ride your high horse
above them all the way to the ballot
box, trampling those girls whose families
are holding them back from democracy
because they happened to be born with
breasts. You can tip-ex the 19th of
November out of the calendar and cry
every year about how there’s no day
set aside for men instead of educating
yourself and working to promote male
issues but that might be too much like
activism and you don’t want to be
confused for someone who cares too
much.
Or you can accept that power is not
absolute, suffering is not exclusive
to you and feminism is not a
global view. You drew a lucky hand
in the social poker game
and instead of playing your cards
to your chest you can share
them round so every woman
get’s to draw for herself. You
got to decide you didn’t need
feminism which is only possible
because of the work of those
women you seem to disregard.
You don’t have to call yourself
a feminist, because it’s all about choice.
but
If we all worked together, women
and men, on this one day instead
of turning our nose up at preconceived
notions then maybe, one day,
every woman can say:
“I don’t need feminism too.”
– Francesniff
Domestic Poetry 