Some years back a friend awoke in the middle of the night-
Awoke in a terrible fright
With a rapist poised to strike – she screamed and hissed
“your mother would not approve of this”
He stopped in his tracks and soundlessly crept away
She escaped being one of the billion whose fate we rise up for today
No mother would willfully approve or sanction
Such brutal and violent attacks on women
But what we need to know is how such behaviors originate
Understand the genesis of this male violence and hate
Is this inherent– a matter of estrogen versus testosterone?
Or dysfunctional behavior learned at home.
In South Pacific we’re told: “you’ve got to be taught before its too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught”
In Amy Ziering’s The Invisible War we learn
20% of female soldiers are raped and must return
To their units in fear and shamed
As they often are for their own sexual violence blamed
Code Pink’s Patricia Foulkroud chillingly documents
in The Ground Truth how soldiers are systematically taught
To overcome the innate taboo against killing
With some disgustingly brainwashed into finding it thrilling
The Mi Lai Massacre was exposed by Seymour Hersch
Who interviewed the mother of one of the perps
“I sent you a sweet young man’” she mournfully said.
“You gave me back a murderer instead.”
Children who observe or are victims of violence
As adults repeat this vicious cycle
Rape and violence against women has nothing to do with eros
But is a manifestation of brutality, domination, control and thanatos
Cynthia Hill’s powerful documentary Private Violence
Highlights the difficulties women face
In escaping from tyrannical domestic terrorists
And the sometimes lethal anger evoked when they resist.
Today by rising up and dancing we express our worldwide complaint
Against man waging war on women without restraint.
With exceptions most of the violence in the world is done by men
And they do it over and over and over again.
In considering violence against women we explore
The commonalities between domestic abuse and war.
Rape has become a weapon in modern war we see
With innocent women and children being 90% of the casualties.
So we rise up and dance for justice on this beautiful day
In hopes that we will find a way
To let female strength, beauty and generativity
Be expressed in climate of acceptance and civility
But we cannot deny male responsibility
For most of the violence in this world
For before we can treat we must understand
The reasons for the horrible deeds done by men.
It seems that Men suffer from a malady profound
In that circulating testosterone molecules abound
Which drives them incessantly to destroy
And constantly develop every ploy
To scheme and manipulate and use aggression
To prove their manhood and obtain possessions
But the world would be a better place—I think
If it were run by the women of CodePink
The men at Goldman Sachs made billions in winter red wheat
By quintupling the price of a staple millions eat
Forcing a quarter of a billion people into near starvation
A form of violence deserving condemnation.
Clearly women give birth and instinctively nurture
And have a clearer view of humanity’s future
Ironically, and I think this we must face –
Women- not men- will save the human race!
HP Charman MD 2-15-2014