sexism – Writers Resist

Reputation

TW: SA

By Frances Koziar

He speaks of his reputation
while I think of fates worse than death,
his name, when I would gladly give up mine
for a good night’s sleep, to see those nightmares
shaped like ordinary men slain
before their groping hands reach me; he speaks
of having a life ruined, not knowing
what that really means, not understanding
how men can form packs like wolves
at the first sound of a woman’s
assertiveness, ready
to tear that voice from her neck, carnage
be damned, not seeing our loss of reputation
every time we speak our names, our shame,
even when the evidence convinces anyone
who’ll let it; I laugh
when I want to cry, hold still
when I shake with fear, walk with poise
when I am running away, because attention
is the most dangerous thing of all. Smile
they tell you while you bleed out from the throat;
Speak, Pretty One,
but only if you say frivolous things; Sing—
but I can only hear screams.

Frances Koziar has published poetry in over 35 different literary magazines, including Vallum and Acta Victoriana. A young (disabled) retiree and a social justice advocate, she lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Visit her website and follow her on Facebook.

Photo credit: “Eve in Shame” by Stanley Zimny via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Post-Election Meltdown

By Marcella Remund

I am 60 years old. In my lifetime,

my mother’s lifetime, and all the
lifetimes that came before,
no woman has been president.

Don’t tell me to get over it

I have TRAINED blonde footballers
for jobs I couldn’t get without a penis,
jobs that paid ten times my single-mom
salary. After 40 years, I still must work

harder, longer, sweeter to make less.
I have been the “chick in the band.”

I am afraid to go out alone at night.
To walk alone, eat alone, travel alone.
I have been targeted as a child, nine
months’ pregnant, wrinkled and old.
Pedophiles picked me out at 7, at 13.

Don’t tell me to let it go.

I have worked since I was 14.
So has my mother, who worked
two and sometimes three jobs
until she was 70, so had my
grandmother, both of them always,
always, still expected to keep a clean
house, put dinner on the table, pay
bills, keep four kids quiet.

Don’t tell me to move on.

I have daughters, daughters-in-law,
granddaughters, nieces, girl cousins,
sisters-in-law. Their world will go on
just like before, unequal, unsafe, unjust,
until those men are gone—you know
who they are—and worse:

they will inherit a tanking economy
for all but billionaires, greed and profit
our national anthem, international
isolation in our buffoonery, and worse:

open, ignored, sanctioned hatred
and humiliation aimed at my non-male,
non-white, non-Christian, non-straight,
othered friends & family (and yours,
because you have them too).
The list of damages goes on and on.

Don’t tell me we have other work to do.

I have earned this anger.

DO YOU HEAR ME?

Don’t tell me not to feel this grief,
this disbelief, this loss of faith.
I will open my heart and my home
to those who are terrified, paralyzed,
hopeless. And I will move on,
get over it, let it go when I’m
goddam ready. Until that moment,
I will keep screaming

NO.

Marcella Remund is a native of Omaha, Nebraska, and a South Dakota transplant, where she teaches English at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals. Her chapbook, The Sea is My Ugly Twin, was published in 2018 by Finishing Line Press, and her first full-length collection, The Book of Crooked Prayer, is forthcoming from Finishing Line in 2020.

Photo credit: The sculpture, “Innovation,” is by artist Badral Bold, made with horse tail. It is photographed by Frank Lindecke via a Creative Commons license.