On the occasion of not being invited out for an evening with the boys
When I was young I sang a song,
“I love being a girl”
I don’t remember much about it
but I know it didn’t talk about
menses or childbirth
not to say, well, not to state a negative,
I’m happy I gave birth, could give birth,
could hold a child close to me for 9
months, feel them kick or jump
on my bladder or squirm
and then press through into the world–
no, that was being part of an everyday
miracle, I wouldn’t trade that—
sometimes I wonder if misogyny exists
because men are afraid we’d be too
powerful if we held our life-givingness
over their heads, if the power that
comes from bearing up and bearing
down were translated into a coinage,
with a womb on one side and an umbilical
cord on the other—my God, that coin
would be more valuable than any gold
on the earth. So they, and their fathers
and their fathers’ fathers, and so on
since Adam blamed Eve, try to put us
in our place, but it’s not our place,
it’s where they think we belong, but
it never feels like home.
Then there are the men who stand up
for us, who urge us on, who encourage us,
who open doors for us not because we
cannot but because we are strong and
precious at the same time, and not just
doors in buildings but doors of life.
Those men.
Susan Fuchtman 