The Conceit of a Man





How dare I stand before you, a man – to recite a poem on women and about the rights of women the world over?



Am I not the perfect caricature of that man – who deems himself capable, and so very able, even entitled?



Yes, aren’t I that man who thinks he understands,



who believes righteously that he knows what it has been like, and what it is like being a woman in this crass, misogynistic world.



The man who presumes to know and to empathise about countless women’s deeply personal and painful truths that they live each day, not just at times,


I am that man who thinks it possible, even admirable of him to scribble out a few rhymes. 



Isn’t this what caricatures like me have always done – speak on behalf of, or drone on about women, their struggles and the need of the now, the forging ahead in the countless battles yet to be fought for the emancipation of women,


yes caricatures indeed, us men who beat down with bloodied fists the very same women, for whom we hurl a few slogans around, utterly meaningless as they fall to the blood stained ground.



But never will I admit to the profanities I have spewed, in-between off hand chats with male friends, those chats about how many chicks I have screwed.



The man before you stands and pontificates about all that women need – the liberal manifesto – equal pay for all, the right of a woman to determine what is best for her body, the calling out of the lewd catcalls and the uncouth slow-eyed once-over leering stares, shamelessly violating the woman, even as she with contempt at them all glares.



The man, oblivious to the hypocrisy, prattles on and on, speaking on behalf of women the world over, so attuned to their struggles, harping and carping, about feminism and women’s lib, all the while with a self-congratulatory tone so condescending and glib.



Ah but the facts speak for themselves, and they stack up time and time again, from time immemorial, to today, to a backdrop of the shrieks of collective pain.



The time has come and long passed, for the facts to be driven into the consciousness of every man, every boy, every girl, every person this wide world around,


if for once, we may actually, onto a sliver of hope hold, it must be to accept our complicity in this sorry parade, while dusting off the grime and slime of this endless charade. 



The facts are brutal, they speak for themselves – the facts are grotesque, screaming to us all,


for as the worn-out adage goes, we stand together, or together we will fall.



The facts are plain to see, they condemn us for our inaction, the facts are unalterable, they will never be what we want them to be, even as we sew our eyes shut not wanting to see. 



I should perhaps apologise for not being more positive, and for being so abrasively cynical,


but I would rather say what I’ve said now,


and say it ever more,


because somehow I feel,


the platitudes will be dished out on Women’s Day and whenever our consciences are pricked,


by news reports of the unspeakable crimes of the savage treatment of women, the truths we live with daily, the said and the unsaid, the unspoken behind-the-picket fence abuse,


where no matter what we may think, it is us men who shroud ourselves behind the veil of complicit silence, seeing only what we choose.



Yes, so I would rather say all of this, gagging in this stench of rotten egos laid bare, as the truth we unpeel,


instead of gurgling out more lame, old feel-good, and utterly meaningless spiel,


while us men, the chosen ones, the patriarchy at its most hideous,


still, and for quite a while longer, I’m sorry to say,


expect the woman to always kneel.




anti-Apartheid poster from the 1980s

#MeToo