{"id":295,"date":"2015-06-11T22:28:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T22:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.writehanded.org\/poetry\/?p=295"},"modified":"2015-06-11T22:28:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T22:28:58","slug":"i-was-a-feminist-in-the-eighties-anne-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/2015\/06\/11\/i-was-a-feminist-in-the-eighties-anne-kennedy\/","title":{"rendered":"I was a feminist in the eighties – Anne Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This has been one of my favourite poems for a long time, and often one I choose for\u00a0readings, because it sounds great and the ending always gets a good reaction.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was a feminist in the eighties<\/strong><\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to have
\na good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to
\nhave your consciousness raised
\nand have a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to
\nhave regard for your personal well-being
\nhave your consciousness raised
\nand have a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to
\nhave a crack at financial independence
\nhave regard for your personal well-being
\nhave your consciousness raised
\nand have a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to
\nchampion women, have a crack at
\nfinancial independence, have regard
\nfor your personal well-being
\nhave your consciousness raised and
\nhave a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to do the
\nchildminding, washing, shopping, cooking and cleaning
\nwhile your mind is on higher matters
\nand champion women, have a crack
\nat financial independence, have regard
\nfor your personal well-being
\nhave your consciousness raised
\nand have a good
\nnight\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to button
\nyour coat thoughtfully, do the childminding
\nwashing, shopping, cooking and cleaning
\nwhile your mind is on higher matters
\nand champion women, have a crack at
\nfinancial independence, have regard for
\nyour personal well-being, have your
\nconsciousness raised and have
\na good night\u2019s
\nsleep.<\/p>\n

To be a feminist you need to
\nengage in mature dialogue with
\nyour spouse on matters of domestic
\nequality, button your coat thoughtfully
\ndo the childminding, washing, shopping, cooking and cleaning
\nwhile your mind is on higher matters
\nand champion women, have a crack at
\nfinancial independence, have regard
\nfor your personal well-being, have
\nyour consciousness raised and
\nhave a good
\nnight\u2019s
\nsleep.<\/p>\n

Then a lion came prowling out of the jungle
\nand ate the feminist all up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kennedy\u00a0says: ‘This poem was written in the context of a long sequence, Sing-song<\/em>, which charts the domestic life of a family nursing a child through severe eczema. Among the relentless march of illness, I wanted some poems that looked outward from the main text, like abstractions, reflecting that, no matter what\u2019s going on, our view is never simply one thing. (This is partly why I wrote this narrative as poetry, because it allows quick-change-artist shifts of voice and view.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a feminist in the eighties\u201d is one of these abstracted poems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a bit of a joke about getting real. In my twenties (the 80s), I really did think putting yourself second (or indeed, last!), or looking like death warmed up from tiredness were not feminist aspirations, and certainly something that could never happen to me. On a more serious level, I suppose this poem begs the question of what it is to be a feminist.\u2019<\/p>\n

To me, this poem speaks on many levels about what it is to be a woman, not just a feminist, and the expectations that are put on us for being both of these things.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting to read Kennedy’s explanation of the poem, because I wasn’t aware it was also linked to illness – but now that makes sense. There is a growing sense of fatigue here that matches not only the trials of trying to be a woman and a feminist, but also trying to deal with chronic pain.<\/p>\n

To me, the lion at the end always represented the patriarchy. I’m not sure if that was Kennedy’s intent, but that’s how it feels to me. Like I do everything I can to be a enlightened, thoughtful, compassionate, champion women, look after my house, look after my health – and then there’s always someone who will come along and shatter everything. I gotta say – usually that someone is a dude.<\/p>\n

(As an aside, my recent battles with GiggleTV<\/a> are actually a good example. I am trying to be enlightened, thoughtful, compassionate, champion women, look after my own health and that of others… and every time I see one of those screens with one of those terrible jokes, it reminds me that the rest of the world – the lion – doesn’t see things like I do. And look at the comments on that post – there’s a few lions in there too).<\/p>\n

Anyway, I love this poem. I love the cadence, the content, the compassion, and what I feel to be the humour on a very difficult subject. It is especially meaningful to me because I struggle with every single one of the things deemed necessary to be a feminist. I can’t sleep. I’m not financially independent. I’m a terrible cook. And I often button my coat up in all the wrong holes.<\/p>\n

… maybe it’s time we became the lion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

ANNE KENNEDY was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1959. She has written a novella, and two novels, Musica Ficta<\/em> and A Boy and His Uncle<\/em>, and a book of poems, Sing-song<\/em>. Many of her short fictions have appeared in journals and anthologies, including \u2018Jewel\u2019s Darl\u2019, which won the BNZ\/Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and was made into a short film by Peter Wells. Anne has worked as a screenwriter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This has been one of my favourite poems for a long time, and often one I choose for\u00a0readings, because it sounds great and the ending always gets a good reaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[7,15,17,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}