Her voice could be heard
Three generations within earshot
Yet the man in front of her
Was two ears short of listening
At times she spoke
Simply to convince herself
That she could
Due more
Then listen
Wading for something more than deaf
And dumb ruse of men
Relegated to quaint shams
Engendering stupefactions
As a pathetic answer
To unquestioning order
In a guise whirled
Gent-ly herd
In tasteful reservations
And if more than udder
He turns out
To be the outright shovin’ist
Is it possible
For him to do without
As if
You list a strata
And he’ll forevermore
Still fancy himself
On top
The crowning member
Of some exclusive club
The human race
Oft leaving
Room for only one abet
Take it or leave it
Never quite getting it
What he wonts
So leading ladies
Show him a role
Un-for-gettable
And when it comes to you
It will be
Awe about
That transcending property
You’re choice
Being heard is perhaps one of the most fundamental aspects of positive human experience. This poem addresses the profoundly prevalent and persistent reality that women are not listened to as much as men. The need for human connection is so strong that being ignored can be more harmful than active dislike. Being treated as an object rather than a subject is the primary mode of dehumanizing people.
The male privilege present in most human cultures, often called sexism, may be the most important -ism in humans’ communal experience. Sexism may also be the most stubbornly persistent -ism. I think that this is true because women are interspersed in all human cultures. Many -isms, such as racism and classism, flourish because of in-group and out-group dynamics that can more easily be stratified in one’s everyday life and experience. However, since women are nearly omnipresent in households with more than one person, there would seem to be powerful forces integrating women in a relatively fair way into the most fundamental units of society, the family or household. A nearly universal factor in advancing equality for disenfranchised groups is to have that group exposed in meaningful ways to the dominant group. It seems that the theory is that exposure leads to understanding, compassion and justice. This doesn’t strike me as having much truth in regard to women. Boys grow up with the proverbial “hand that rocks the cradle,” subject to profound influence by their mothers. In the dominant heterosexual world, men seek and have close relations with women, as lovers, partners-spouses, raisers of children. Still, it seems that these interpersonal and family dynamics are trumped by larger social and cultural forces. I don’t pretend to have a solution for the ages old “war of the sexes” (which is typically framed in male fashion). Nonetheless, I am quite sure that men not listening to women is not only a profound insult to women, but a profound loss to men. Listen up guys!!
