If I Were a Man by Annemarie
If I were a man I’d have first been a boy ,
With football and cricket, air guns and toys.
Teenager days I would be croaking and squeaking
With baffling bulges happening below.
My feet would be smelly, and a beard I’d grow.
If I were a man I could pump iron each day
Have a laudable six-pack, a chest to display,
Wear budgie smugglers down on the beach.
My teeth would be straightened and whitened with bleach.
I’d drive a Ferrari and attract all the girls.
If I were man with a wife and a family
I could do all the shopping in Lidl or Aldi;
There’s the wonderful aisle right in the middle,
Full of those items, essential and handy
So I suddenly realise ‘they’re just what I need!'
I’d wear baggy shorts and a horrible vest;
Hairs would be sprouting from my nose and my chest;
I'd sit on the couch with my big beer belly
With packets of crisps, watching the telly.
I’d shout at the match while slurping my beers.
Of the males above I would elect none of these.
Today we can be any gender we please.
Captains of industry or leaders of states
Women can do whatever men can…
….Except pee in a bottle?
But if I were a man none of this would you hear;
No eating fine food, no champagne or good cheer;
No books to discuss, no stories to share;
Let’s face it ladies, I just wouldn’t be here
As men are not welcome in our feminine lair.
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Jackie
If I were a man I would make a plan
To drive a van?
With a girl called Ann
I would become a jazzman, clergyman or fisherman
Buy a frying pan in Kazakhstan
If I were a man
I could become a businessman
Make a masterplan
Drive a sedan like a madman
Say hello to Peterpan
If I were a man
I could get a suntan in Afghanistan
Wear a kaftan
Go to Hindustan
But man to man
I would most like to go to Japan
Maybe in a catamaran
Walk the streets that are spick and span
But as I said to the milkman
All this is beyond my attention span
I’ll be the middleman
And have fun as a ladiesman
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Geraldine's story
IF I WERE A MAN
If I were a man, I think I would look at women differently : not just according to their appareance, the way they dress, their looks, their figure, but maybe to find out what they have inside and I could well be surprised.
If I were a man, maybe I would be pleasently surprised by what I would find, this means leaving my masculine culture behind and entering a new world. But how could I leave all those centuries of masculine domination behind without having intense feelings of loss ? I would try and work and find out about how this domination took over, beyond just the physical strenght there is between us.
This could be an excellent arena for action, correlated with environmental protection for the following decades and before it’s too late.
If I were a man, I would think twice about engaging wars in which our children would have to be involved. I would try to truly understand mother’s reactions to the loss of children they have brought into the world.
If I were a man, I would be very receptive to the reaction women have just had in Island when they recently went on strike, including the Prime Minister to require at last equal pay between men and women.
If I were a man, I would try and find out how I could really and efficiently take my part of the mental load involved in childcare and housecare. Maybe by switching roles for a couple of months, which could probably help me realizing all I never thought about around these chores !
If I were a man with daughters, I would definitly make sure I’m bringing them up as I would boys, never making them feel they could be « behind » « weaker » « diminished » or « just girls » « only girls » !
If I were a man, I would NEVER interfere or take part in decisions concerning nothing but the woman’s body : abortion, painful periods, but also what to look like, how to dress etc…
But fortunately I’m not a man and as we, women, mainly occidental ones, have already recently made steps towards our emancipation, I shall continue talking to men, convincing them that the path they have been on for so many years has to change, and trying to help them do so.
And dreaming of emancipation for all the woman who are still so far from it, supporting them and helping make steps towards it.
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Sarah's story
If I were a man – 1 revised4
(27.10.2023)
“If I were a man,” said Zera, “I would have one of those things hanging down in front. Yuck!”
“Well, being a woman you’ve got two things hanging down in front,” countered Maya.
“Speak for yourself! My boobs are still firm. They stick right out.”
And this was patently true, as they could both see, even if it was also true that Maya, though more rounded than her chum, and with heavier breasts, was still quite firm herself. But adolescents will parry and thrust, especially when they have nothing else to do, as was the case this warm November morning.
“I love November!” said Maya, caressing her skin which was soaking in the oblique rays of the sun.
“You know, in the old days,” mused Zera, “November was a cold month, people didn’t like it.”
“I know. And now it’s our best month; so much better than summer! We can stay outside nearly all day long. Though the days are shorter, of course.”
“What’s the point of long days if you never see the sun? I get so bored underground, living by artificial light, though we hardly have that any more, now that there’s no electricity. November is so much nicer!”
“Yes, but in those days, they didn’t like it, they stayed indoors and made a fire.”
“No, they didn’t. They had central heating.”
“What’s that?”
“Something that came from petroleum, and you didn’t have to make a fire to keep warm.”
“What’s petroleum?”
“You never heard of petroleum? That was something essential in the old days. People couldn’t live without it. They used it to run their cars, and don’t tell me you don’t know what cars were, they used it for heating, they used it to make plastics—“
“I know what plastics are.”
“Yeah, there are still some of those around. But people didn’t hoard them like treasures in the old days. Plastic objects were cheap then and they threw them away constantly. That’s how we are still able to find some in the excavations. But that’s not the only thing they made with petroleum; they made the cloth for people’s clothes. You do know that people used to wear something they called clothes?”
“Yes, I know. But I thought they made them out of animal skins and plants they spun and wove, like cotton and silk and hemp.”
“That was in our great-great-grandparents’ time, before the animal rights people took over and forbade using anything that came from animals, like fur or leather or wool.”
“You don’t agree?” Zera sounded shocked.
“Yes, of course. I respect animals. But it complicated things. Not so much at first, that’s why everybody agreed. People made do, because there was still petroleum in those days. And they could make nylon and rayon and acrylic fibre. But when the petroleum ran out, that’s when people went back to weaving natural things, until the heat of the planet made all the cotton plantations dry up and made the silkworms die, and hemp production became impossible because it used so much water, and so on.”
“Well anyway, we don’t need clothes any more.”
“True, but the fact is we don’t wear clothes any more by law, by necessity. It would be wrong, or impossible. But it’s dog in the manger to say we don’t need them. I would like to have clothes, I think it’s a fun idea.”
“Maybe. You could choose what you looked like. And then too, maybe we wouldn’t have so much hair growing on our bodies.”
“That’s for a fact. I sure wish we could go back to the old days!”
