Dee Evetts
Essay #9 May/June 2022
It would be hard to refute the accumulated evidence that in most cultures and societies around the world (though not quite all) women have historically been the oppressed — and the suppressed, and the exploited — gender, while men have been the perpetrators of all that. This being due not to malicious intent, some would argue, but out of ignorance. An ignorance all too clearly compounded nonetheless by such lofty notions as heritage, tradition, entitlement, and — this is the slippery one — the notion of protectiveness.
With regard to this highly dubious latter principle, a contemporary case very much to the point as I write this is the decision by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, just a few weeks ago, to ban girls — young women, effectively — from returning to school, as had been promised and scheduled. As many readers will have heard, they arrived at their schools for the new semester only to be sent straight home again. The ostensible grounds for this was a difference of opinion among the authorities regarding what the students’ dress code should be: head and face covering only, or the full body-concealing burqa. This may very well have been a pretext, yet it offers a glimmer of hope that the authorities (all of whom are male, naturally) in 2022 are no longer unanimous on such issues. It may be over-optimistic to imagine that at least a few powerful or influential men recognise that their country is going to need every talented graduate it can find, regardless of gender.
But enough prose; let us get to the poems. As a way in to this complicated topic I want to present, first of all, two haiku that are unequivocally feminist in their addressing of similar (and perennial) forms of exploitation. I think we can call it that, given that the person who has power in each of these situations is essentially saying: “Submit to this if you know what’s good for you”. These two poems are by Miriam Bourne and Tony Pupello:
skirt discarded pink slip
her hips are scrutinized the supervisor pulls down
by the ballet master the office blinds
From their general reading most people are aware that the first of these situations is — or at least was until very recently — routine in the worlds of film, dance, and theatre, while the realm of sports currently seems to offer a whole smorgasbord of fresh opportunities, sad to say. In itself, there is no reason why the situation depicted above by Bourne should not be innocent of menace, and entirely professional. In practice it has been so widely abused that the term “casting couch” has become a cliché. Today, for the most part, it is a requirement that another woman should be present on all such occasions, a professional who ensures that the guidelines are respected. So far, so good. Nonetheless Bourne’s haiku, with its deadpan delivery, is chilling. It reeks of male control, and the whole history behind that.
Pupello’s poem is more layered, and thereby more elusive. I assume that the term “pink slip” is quite deliberately being used in two senses; it hints at a dismissal notice, and at the same time depicts an undergarment. The scenario that I derive from this is that the dismissal is understood to be commutable — on certain conditions. And so down come the blinds.
Sexual assault is one of the most extreme forms of oppression that exists between humans. Physical force is used to achieve it, in contrast to the strategies and maneuvers depicted in the foregoing poems. Confusingly, though, there is a spectrum to be found even in this. A potentially murderous attack is a long way from so-called date rape, where there can be subsequent disputes regarding when does “No” mean “No” (always), and counter-claims of provocation and cock-teasing. In marked contrast to such ambiguities, Susan Burch’s poem below takes the reader to the place and moment of violation as effectively as anything I have previously seen — in poetry or in prose. How could such a thing have just happened, and the clouds be moving along just as before? We may note how effectively her unadorned statement about the sky conveys that the victim is still lying on the ground, flat on her back.
after my assault
the clouds
still moving
Yellow bruise fading I don’t know
On my right breast, your voice what to tell her
Tonight, long distance bruised mint
Sagan’s poem evokes for me an established relationship that is full of pain and contradiction. The piece is very moving, and explicit, in its depiction of this. I do not know whether the divorce courts still use the term “mental cruelty”, but that would seem to apply here as a larger context for the violence itself. By contrast Popolis’ haiku is in its presentation minimal, and its import is elusive. It seems clear enough that a confidence is being shared between two women. Whether they be close friends, or sisters, or one of them a social worker perhaps, is not clear. Some visible trace of physical abuse is implied by the last line. We cannot be sure whether the speaker is at a loss to know how to advise the other woman, or conversely unable to decide how much to tell her. Meanwhile it remains a question whether the “bruised mint” places them in the kitchen together — or alternatively out of doors, where one of the pair could be plucking at the growing plant as they speak. All this is left open for the reader — and how resonantly open.
It is less obvious that uninvited kissing is, or can be be, a form of assault. Though the law today (at least in Britain) certainly upholds that, it has been difficult to bring successful prosecutions because there is a recognized defence: that the kisser did not intend the kiss as sexual. We can perhaps find some verification of this in our own lives. I have a relative who routinely kisses me on the lips when we meet after a period of time, and both of us understand that it signifies simply a strong mutual affection. A 2020 case in Newcastle resulted in acquittal for a young man who kissed the stranger next to him on a crowded train because she was being mocked by surrounding passengers. This may stretch credibility, and one might wish that he had simply taken her hand instead. (Technically though, that would come under the same heading: uninvited touch.)
This preamble has a point. The following haiku by Roberta Beary evokes a kissing experience that is unequivocally one of assault, compounded by the fact that the implicit intention is incest.
family vacation
in the museum corner
uncle’s hard kisses
I have already discussed this extraordinarily raw haiku in my essay Emotion in Haiku, written for the inaugural issue of tsuri-dōrō at the beginning of last year, and find no reason to change or add anything to what I said then: “Beary’s poem is a slap to the face. Haiku are seldom as explicit as this, or as shocking. Confusion, fear, and above all anger pervade this piece.” The next example prompts broader speculation. Written by Pranita Gulyani, it depicts a woman who may be recovering from unspecified injuries — and they are serious ones by the sound of it. Alternatively they could be old wounds, long since healed, even if only in the physical sense.
long hours
the way the moonlight
fills her scars
Whatever the context, there is someone who watches over her while she sleeps. I think it is this echo of a natural solidarity among women that inclines me to suppose some form of abuse has given rise to this situation.
There are of course less obvious forms of ill-treatment than the kind which cause physical bruises. A person’s psyche can also be mishandled, and their confidence undermined. The three poems that follow are by Baisali Chatterjee Dutt, Genevieve Wynand, and Roberta Beary.
acid rain salt wind just after midnight
how your words the way he twists he corrects
corrode my self-worth my words her auld lang syne
What makes Dutt’s haiku powerful rather than prosaic is the highly effective play on “acid rain. . . corrode”. But the poem does not rest on this metaphor alone; we may also speak of someone being “acid-tongued”, or “speaking acidly”. At the same time “corrode” is a less usual choice than “erode” in this context, carrying with it the idea that self-confidence can be damaged by another person, and not just diminished. Wynand’s haiku takes us — I think — to a windswept beach, along which the implied couple are walking as they talk. Whatever it is she needs to say, her experience in this moment is one of pure frustration, since her companion refuses to truly listen, instead turning all her statements and arguments against her. This belongs in the same broad category as gaslighting and similar campaigns of deception. What we today may call mansplaining (and it must be said that it is not uniquely men who indulge in it) can at times look more like bludgeoning into submission than a genuine exegesis.
Beary’s piece feels more innocuous in tone than the two preceding poems, and borders on the downright funny — depending how you read it, and how you relate to it. The best that can be said of this unfortunate guy is that he is tone deaf (in the modern sense) and hopelessly insensitive. On reflection I find this poem points to a deeper malaise that afflicts us all. How often have we had to reproach ourselves for poor timing — for opening our mouths at the worst possible moment? What we are shown here, however, is a man who has probably never entertained such second thoughts in his entire life.
Aside from Pupello’s “pink slip” cited earlier, all the work so far featured in this essay comes from female poets. This should be no surprise, since women undeniably have more reasons than men for holding strong opinions on this topic. Naturally there are exceptions, and another such voice from the opposite gender is that of Don Erlich:
youtube’s Greatest
Moments In Women’s Soccer:
butt exposure
The internet certainly has a lot to answer for. We all know this, and we are all enmeshed in a complicated dance around the issue. The kind of casual voyeurism portrayed here is from one point of view merely a hangover from the obnoxious “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” tradition of male humor. There are still boys and men who would guffaw at the video to which this haiku refers. I happen to have seen it myself, and I concede that most of the clips are indeed examples of exceptionally brilliant play, such as the inspired and high-speed passing achieved by players when closing in on their opponents’ goal — the kind of fluency that simply takes one’s breath away. Unfortunately the several exceptions are flagrant, as is this one. One would hope that today there are a significant number of male viewers who are embarrassed by such lapses. But these will be totally outnumbered by the girls and women who feel belittled by this kind of disrespect — for their professional skills, not least — and downright angry.
This has been rough going, I know. My next essay in this series will explore easier terrain, albeit equally important. We will be looking at poems that raise questions (often semi-humorous ones) about gender roles and predilections. Such poems are significant because it is in such everyday contexts that stereotypes are bred — or discarded — over the long term. And it seems to me that stereotyping is at the root of much that is problematic in human relationships.
In the meantime here is a teaser to be going on with, by Nathanael Tico:
mansplaining
mansplaining
This haiku first appeared in a recent issue of of tsuri-dōrō. I was completely baffled by it on first sight, but after a while its implications began to sink in. It will repay revisiting next time.
