Tag: Gender Roles

The Weight of Expectation

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems1 Comment

(I wrote this in response to this post. If you don’t read the blog it comes from, you are truly missing something, in my opinion. – Owen)

it isn’t that women are expected
“to have it all” —
  relationships
  family,
  career

it’s that they are expected to do
mutually contradictory things —
  be at work
  while being at home with the kids
  while being passionate with their lover

in fact,
i would argue that

if you are doing any two of the above list
at the same time
you aren’t doing either of them well

yet,
  every day –
  everywhere –
  every hour —

women feel the desire, the need,
and the overwhelming pressure
of impossible expectations

if by some chance
you’re one of those
who has all these things figured out,
send us a facebook link
to your universal answer
so we can all

ignore it

 
…

one last thing:
the only weight
always worth losing

is the weight

of impossible
expectations

Old-Fashioned

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original Poems2 Comments

She told him he must fight for her,
But that he would not do.
He said, “You know I want you;
I need you to want me, too.

And if you don’t, that’s fine;
Just go ahead, and be with him.”
And she said, “Yeah, whatever.
Hit the bricks, man. What a wimp.”

I heard what they both said, but
I cannot tell who is right.
Still, isn’t it old-fashioned
To expect us men to fight?

Masculine and Yang

On By Beleaguered ServantIn Original PoemsLeave a comment

I never was much of a man
By standards of the day;
I don’t have six-pack abs
Or have too many. Anyway —

I can’t fix anything that breaks,
Although I sure can break it —
I’ve not the confidence that makes
A winner. Nor can fake it.

And when it’s time for battle
In the world of strength and sweat:
By guile, I’ll hang in there,
But the strength’s not happened yet.

And when the guys with muscles
Come by shirtless, I will know
That I barely exist
And never have
And ever so

I have competing virtues
So I won’t give up — I’ll try —
It’s hard to be a man, though
When you are my kind
Of guy

(Note – more the twenty-five year old me than the fifty-two year old me)