Happy International Women’s Day, everyone. It’s the one day a year we get to celebrate being women; the rest of the year, we just get to be women. That’s sort of how it is, right? And on International Women’s Day, I was noticing most of the things I saw that referenced the date seemed to be about flowers and chocolate. No mention of the thousands…millions…of amazing women who have left their mark on this world. No mention that women are scientists, philosophers, mechanics, engineers, poets, teachers, doctors, astronauts, librarians, nurses, day care workers, food service employees, assembly line workers, farmers, soldiers…well, I guess I could go on forever, but you get the picture. So for tonight, a poem…something I was told recently by someone who is an ally of women’s liberation, and yet was able to tell me to…

ACCOMMODATE

 Accommodate.
You tell me I should accommodate.
You mean
Dumb myself down.
Talk airheaded and fluffy.
Pretend I don’t know.
Let the big man show the little woman
How things need to be done
So the big man will feel bigger
Than the little woman.

 Accommodate.
My mother said accommodate.
Don’t act smart, she said.
Don’t act smart because
Men won’t like you.
Men won’t marry you.
Men don’t want to have smart babies
With a smart woman.
I don’t want a man, I said.
I don’t want a man who doesn’t like smart women.

 I spent many long hard years
Learning what I know.
Through school and through life.
As a single mother.
As a full time employee.
As a full time student.
As a woman.
Backwards and in high heels.
Now you say accommodate.
So the man won’t feel bad.

 All I can say when you say accommodate
Is:
NO!