Hello
This might be a bit longer. There will be three poems on this as well.
I’m a big, old, mouthy lefty. One of those awful snowflakes you read so much about who is professionally offended on everyone’s behalf except I’m not. I can be as annoyed by my teammates on the left as I can be by my interlocuters on the right. We Lefties can be a bit po-faced and humourless and as an Irishman I can’t be having that. Being shite craic is a worse sin than anything else.
I don’t label myself progressive, or feminist, or an ally or any of these things. I am a Socialist, leaning towards the more Marxist end. I really don’t think it is my place to give myself accolades. I certainly hope that I do enough to be considered as such by those who do hold it within their gift to say so, *but* it should never be about being seen. You should never have to tell anyone that you are progressive. Progressive is as progressive does and if you perform a progressive act in the expectation of credit then you’re a bit of a dick really and your motivations are awry. If you need to tell people you are progressive, well, you know?
Disingenuous performances do any and all movements a disservice. When the performative actor doesn’t receive their performative cookie they tend to huff, throw their toys out of the pram and walk away so it was never about the cause. It was only ever about being seen. The cause is then tainted by the association with these cowards.
I want to do the right thing and fight for the kind of world I want to live in. None of the causes I rally for are about me (Pro-Palestine, Pro-choice, Pro-Trans, Anti-austerity, Civil-rights, Housing, Anti-sectarian, Pro-LGBTQIA+, Trade Union rally’s and Picket lines for better pay and conditions etc) outside of the notion that I fight for the kind of world that I want to live in. I don’t need to be given credit for doing the right thing. It is, after all, the right thing.
Why does doing the right thing need to be incentivised?
Perform an act of indiscriminate and anonymous kindness.
Poems:
Anyway, to the poems. I was *hoping* to point out the various kinds of man there is out there. I got this idea by shutting my mouth and listening to women. I know, right? Aren’t I class? Anyway what happened was a few women I know were lamenting that some men have become so progressive that they won’t ask women out on dates in case they offend. As if merely finding women attractive is sexist. Objectifying women is sexist but finding women attractive is part of the reason most of us are here today. Anyway as a chap I kinda saw how some men would view this as a validation for avoiding commitment. So no progression at all, just a reason gleaned from a complete and perhaps deliberate misunderstanding because of the not listening and insisting on interpreting everything through a toxically masculine filter.
As usual, these are probably unfinished. They feel a bit unfinished and clumsy.
Progressive Answering Machine
Toxic masculinity, we have learned
Demands impossible standards of men
and has a co-morbid fear of commitment
We see this now. We want to do better.
We want to be better. We listened.
We understand now. We know what to do.
We now realise that we aren’t good enough
We need to go and become good enough
Before we could possibly commit to anything.
We’re out trying to become wonderfully woke
Fantastically feminist and perfectly progressive.
We’ll get back to you once we’ve decided we’ve got there.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP…
Not all men
Toxic masculinity, as we men have learned,
Demands impossible standards of men
and so we have become very concerned
with the state of ourselves in the kennel.
Some of us don’t even say “not all men”
(Although some of us secretly think it)
And we’ll do a progressive act for women
To receive our feminist biscuit.
Don’t question too closely our motivations
Focus on how well we are behaving
Now we deserve positive affirmations
Why can you not see that we are amazing.
We’ve read the right books and we quote the right quotes
And we’re with you at the demonstrations
We’ve jumped through all the performative hoops
Still you won’t give us any attention?
Stop pointing out that the bars really low
Or that a bar may not exist at all
Statistically we are still you greatest foe
Acknowledge us or we stop playing ball.
I try. I get it wrong. I try again.
I never once considered that
My point of view was wrong.
I thought that it was the default
Axiomatic all along.
I won’t call myself a feminist
It’s not for me to say
I am trying to do my best
And find a better way.
Nothing could have prepared me for
How much I did not know
About what people that I love
Every day will go through.
And every day since they were children:
Lecherous eyes that go creeping,
And unconsented hands touching
And no-one would listen to them.
If you think this doesn’t happen
To women that you know
Then you have to start asking:
Why don’t women trust you?
