Session 9 – Cross-Gender Interaction (23 October 2009)

I’m all for gender equality across the board, which, as today’s class suggests, would include ‘de-sexing’ language completely. Not an easy task, but if it can be done it most certainly should. Of course, gender equality would also, among other things, mean ‘National’ Service for women, equal standards for physical fitness (I know the current disparity only too well as I failed my idiotic fitness tests in JC, but would have got a GOLD if I had gone for a sex change – not that a gold would have made the tests any less idiotic, but it would have made life easier for me), no ‘ladies first’ situations, and men being able to wear skirts in public without being subjected to abuse. Double-edged sword and all that.

On the other hand, some would argue that the fundamental differences are insurmountable. Here’s a famous poem I like that, though heavily biased from a male perspective to say the least, suggests that the gulf can never be bridged. Although its misogynistic sentiments would be probably regarded as pretty rebarbative today, it’s still a great example of rhetoric from one of the great masters of the language.

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The Vampire (1897)

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A fool there was and he made his prayer

(Even as you and I!)

To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair

(We called her the woman who did not care)

But the fool he called her his lady fair -

(Even as you and I!)

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Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste

And the work of our head and hand

Belong to the woman who did not know

(And now we know that she never could know)

And did not understand!

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A fool there was and his goods he spent

(Even as you and I!)

Honour and faith and a sure intent

(At it wasn't the least what the lady meant)

But a fool must follow his natural bent

(Even as you and I!)

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Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost

And the excellent things we planned

Belong to the woman who didn't know why

(And now we know that she never knew why)

And did not understand!

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The fool was stripped to his foolish hide

(Even as you and I!)

Which she might have seen when she threw him aside -

(But it isn't on record the lady tried)

So some of him lived but the most of him died -

(Even as you and I!)

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And it isn't the shame and it isn't the blame

That stings like a white-hot brand -

It's coming to know that she never knew why

(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)

And never could understand!

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Rudyard Kipling