Marge Piercy, “In the Men’s Room(s)”
I saw this on Twitter today. I do remember that time. It’s not so distant, but it is still shocking. Then, when I think about it, I realize now is not so different.
So, why a poem? It’s not something I generally do. Because I feel desperately angry that now isn’t more different.
It makes me think of the radical magazines we had in the Folkways archive. Huge number of these masturbatory commit boy magazines, where all the boys played terribly serious radical.
The magazines were full of nude women AND CHILDREN. Full of them. When I found these in the Folkways archive, I raged and raged for days about it to my ALL MALE coworkers. They didn’t give a shit. No one does. It’s just women and children.
Makes me think of the so-called progressive bros who call anything outside their white male experience “identity politics,” which is code for “I don’t give a shit because you aren’t me and I matter and you don’t matter.”
This is why I rage so much against fake radicals and their rape fantasy essays and radical posturing while they do nothing, sponsor nothing, just wag their finger and pose for the camera while decrying identity politics. Complicit.
This is so shocking to me because it really is still now.