Day 25

One more week to go, and I have writer's block. So I decided to write about it, sort of a stream of consciousness poem.

I CANNOT WRITE TONIGHT*

I cannot write tonight
Because of…hysteria, or something.
Because it’s “more of a guy thing”.
Or maybe it lacks that “estrogen vibe”.
I cannot write tonight
Because “women aren’t funny”
And I feel like writing funny tonight.
I cannot write tonight
Because of my ovaries,
My uterus,
Or my mammary glands.
I’m never quite sure which it is
That makes me incapable of staying on task,
Of thinking deep, profound thoughts,
Of organizing, balancing a checkbook,
Or parking a car.
I cannot write tonight,
I suppose because I am a woman
And women cannot
Hunt the mammoth…
Invent things…
Have original ideas…
Score in the top ten percent of their class…
Fight in combat…
Or change their own oil.
I cannot write tonight
Because “all the great writers have always been men”.
Shakespeare, but not Jane Austen.
Charles Dickens, but not George Eliot
(Because George Eliot was not a man).
Voltaire, but not Mary Shelley.
I cannot write tonight
Because I need to go have babies…
Or because I’ve “hit the wall”…
Or just because…I am woman.

*Quotes in parentheses actual quotes by actual people who actually did say something this damned ignorant