by Lucy Newlyn, Gerard Lally and Jude Cowan Montague

Who wears the trousers?

I. System

If you really want to meet him you won’t find him at the bar in the theatre or the playground, at a movie, in a car… System has no time for leisure when not working, he’s at war.

System tuts and wags his finger, splitting the whole world in two subject/object, slave and master male and female, me and you. He is tall and very tight-lipped, white, and knows a thing or two.

When first born, he wasn’t naked wore a suit, had socks and shoes. (His mother fled, she couldn’t bear to see the way that she’d been used.) Now he carries rule and compass instruments he mustn’t lose.

System loves to make decisions on what’s good and what is bad. Nothing thwarts his use of logic, nothing makes him lost or sad. There’s no sea that he can’t measure Newton should have been his dad.

142

Mathematics, Law and Physics these are fields he understands. He knows rules and regulations like the back of his right hand. (Don’t expect imagination, that’s a flame that can’t be fanned.)

System has a blindfold on him, cannot see outside his head thinks of all things in compartments black and white or blue and red. He loves walls and tall skyscrapers, keeps a gun inside his bed.

If there were a way to build it System would devise a wall strong enough to keep out strangers no, we don’t want them at all. In our nations as our houses, let’s be mean, and let’s be small.

System’s always been much better than competitors at Trade. And you’ll find he’s always Tory that’s the way the world is made. If that scares you, then you’d better ask what makes you so afraid.

Invariably good at money, he backs the winner, funds the wars, underwrites fraud and oppression, evades the taxes, writes the laws. Nothing shocks him, nothing moves him, gives him pleasure, gives him pause.

143

If you want to beat the System you won’t find him at the bar in the theatre or the playground but inside all things that are. He is Male, and he is Always whether working, or at war.

Lucy Newlyn

II. Divide and Conquer

‘Divide and conquer’ is the motto Every ruler has to know; When the ruled combat each other There can be no overthrow. A crow is black, without a doubt, but Each black thing is not a crow.

Gerard Lally

III. Who is winning?

Adam delved. Eve did the spinning, bore the children, cooked the food. In this system, who is winning? Is the System fair, and good? What has changed since the beginning if we’re all still spilling blood?

History is with us always Patriarchy has shaped Man Ever since the story started. (That’s when gender wars began.) Language is a gendered system.

144

System is a gendered plan. Empire, Rule, Colonisation, Disequity of every kind All are Manifestations Of the drive that makes Man blind. Change is very slow in coming: See it, blowing in the wind.

First you must perceive the System. If you can’t, then others can. Take your blindfold off and face it: Mrs Thatcher was a Man. See the world and see it clearly When you’re ready, form your plan.

Lucy Newlyn

IV. Rewritten history

The feminists have really hit the fan. As part of their rewritten history They claim that Mrs. Thatcher was a man.

My foaming mouth can’t force these lines to scan, But bloodshot bulging eyeballs yet can see The feminists have really hit the fan.

Rather than quit and place a general ban On bashing harmless males for gallantry, They claim that Mrs. Thatcher was a man.

Thatcher bore children! Only women can! Where is my text of Gray’s Anatomy? The feminists have really hit the fan.

145

To emphasise the distaff was her plan, But since she also wanted markets free, They claim that Mrs. Thatcher was a man.

Women should rule, that’s how the story ran, And clout with handbag men that disagree. The feminists have really hit the fan. They claim that Mrs. Thatcher was a man!

Gerard Lally

V. A telepathic communication

Hélène Cixous made telepathic contact with me during the night and dictated to me the following poem, which I give to you as nearly verbatim as I can. It's inevitable that I will have missed some of the nuances of her villanelle in my translation - French is an even more gendered language than our own, and she makes great play of this. I believe the title of her poem alludes to a sentence in Sorties. (‘Le futur’ is, of course, masculine.)

The Masculine Future

That Thatcher was a Man’s beyond dispute: History repeats himself, I always say. Gender’s not an essence but an attribute.

She mansplained like a man, and wore a suit And did things in a mannish sort of way: That Thatcher was a Man’s beyond dispute.

She found a method to redistribute Her properties, so they could see another day. (Gender’s not an essence, but an attribute).

146

Her cronies were men, she has a man’s repute. We see the same again in Mrs May: Like Thatcher she’s a Man, beyond dispute,

The Iron Lady’s living substitute –Perpetuating her despotic sway. Gender’s not an essence but an attribute.

She has the same old wish to persecute, For patriarchy’s here, and here to stay. That Thatcher was a Man’s beyond dispute; Gender’s not an essence, but an attribute.

Lucy Newlyn

VI. À la Rochester

The revolution’s with us, there’s nothing to be fear’d, Since Karl Marx was a Woman, with a great thick beard, And Lenin was a Woman, with a smooth bald pate, And Trotsky was a Lesbian, or Queer at any rate.

Or is it that Das Kapital was written by a Man, And for that very reason we can drop it from the plan? And Thatcher was a Woman, whose economic brains Exposed the silly weaknesses of John Maynard Keynes?

It’s not a minor matter, the thing won’t go away, For that’s the economic world we’re living in today, And that’s what people take as truth, and what they see as right; Go check it out with Killery, who has reclaimed the night.

147

Go check it out with Merkel, ask her if she’s a bloke! The look upon her face will make you sorry that you spoke. Gender is an attribute, it’s not a social class, And anyone who claims it is, is talking like an ass.

Gerard Lally

VII. The Fall of Man

Long long ago in Paradise the class system began When God decided that he’d build a woman for the man. He made her take the blame for eating apples on a tree Then he shut Man out of Eden, charged a monumental fee.

Those were the days, those were the days, when Man knew Liberty. No man but Adam working and no idle Bourgeoisie Eve bore the children, cooked the food and did the cleaning too. She could have run away but that is not what women do.

With men and women locked in hierarchical embrace, Try telling Eve she’s Adam’s equal: watch the look upon her face! Now fast-forward to our own times, re-consider what you’ve said. Things may have changed a little, but the class-system’s not dead.

Go check out women in the poorest countries round the world; Try telling them they’re free, that the System has unfurled. Sure, gender is an attribute, but anyone’s an ass Who claims that women everywhere are not an underclass.

Lucy Newlyn

148

VIII. A Nocturnal Transmission, from Mary Wollstonecraft

Yes, Thatcher was an honorary man Not every female leader is, that’s not the plan. My own case for instance Surely proves the existence Of one who threw the System down the pan?

It’s not a question of which women have success In a realm which is a pool of stinking cess, But of the values they uphold As they try to shape a world Where men have ruled so long, and made a mess.

I don’t claim that every woman is a man Who fails to execute a perfect plan But that socialism goes (As everybody knows) With feminist ideals - at least, it can.

Lucy Newlyn

IX. Brother and System

The best fruits will go to your brother, you can take the rotting ones, the best beef and the best food. You must have the rotten stew.

The best chances will go to your brother, you will get what's left behind. The top opportunities fall to him while you will crawl in second class.

149

The best of everything goes to your brother, he must succeed and head the list, you will have an easier life. Give the biggest fruit to your brother.

Jude Cowan Montague

X. À la Erasmus Darwin

There is a cat, quite near my home, who’s rough and tough and bad. He looks a bit like Warhol - we call him Warhol’s Dad. His manners are not of the best. In fact, he is quite rude, He bullies all the other cats, and often steals their food. A thug, a mugger, certainly, a cat all wrong and crass, But though there is oppression there, is he a ruling class?

There are clear caste divisions in nests of ant and bee, (But that’s in their biology, from which they can’t be free); Soldiers, workers, wingy drones, which are quite often seen, And interestingly, deep within, a massive ruling queen. It is a system, and it works. It’s how they have contrived To carry on for aeons strange. It’s how they have survived.

To cut a lengthy story short, for many years now past, Life was mainly plants and animals, and species didn’t last. The dinosaurs have all died out, though some of these were large, With teeth and nails oppressive, and fearsome bellowing charge. Can we, though, talk of dinosaurs, in terms of ruling classes? Did terrible tyrannosaurs exploit the reptile masses?

150

To shrink a hundred million years into a simple phrase, Mammals appeared upon the scene, with cute and charming ways Not very different from our own. They liked to fight and mate, Oppress each other merrily, and oftimes glare with hate. Until, around the Pleistocene, ’mid murder, theft and rape, Arose a form that stood erect, a crafty anthropoid ape.

Now known as Homo habilis, these creatures were no fools; They had cohesive social groups, and fashioned simple tools. They no doubt fought among themselves, and half of them were male, But ‘Adam dominating Eve’? That story’s rather stale! What did arise, within their camps, where they would scold and feed, Was on occasion gathering in some food beyond their need.

What to do with the extra nosh? And the surplus tools they made? By the time of Homo sapiens, we have reached the age of Trade. This is the point of social class. The labour was divided, But to say the females bore the load is terribly one-sided. By and large they all worked hard, throughout their wretched lives, Apart, of course - you’ve got it now - from the chieftains and their wives.

Engels wrote a bit on this, but Engels - who was he? Another Man to be opposed, in the name of liberty? If you hark back to the Pentateuch, I really must insist That Feminism of that ilk can never co-exist With Socialist economic thought, and the Marxist dialectic. It tends to harm the comrades, as it makes them apoplectic.

Attacking other people is not a pleasant thing, And we whose words are stinging should be careful where to sting. To ape the dialectic, and preach conflict to the masses Is wrong beyond the turning sphere of economic classes. If the aim is human progress, and the dawn of a new day, “Bungling Man has always ruled” quite gives the game away.

151

Feminism as a stance may serve professional aims, With a nice indulgent bourgeoisie, unthreatened by its claims, But uncalled-for jeers and insults, from a sense of imagined wrong, Against the sex I happen to be - no, that is much too strong. You may call my words “mansplaining” or “repeated his-story”. Expect much more when Feminist rap has a sharp effect on me.

Gerard Lally

XI. Only Natural

Your brother will be given a gun for his seventh birthday, you a Barbie Doll and a pink plastic house with miniature cooking utensils. He will shoot your rabbits. When you cry, you will be told to forgive him. (He is only fulfilling his basic instincts: without them, humans would not survive.) You mustn’t grumble, this is Only Natural.

When you are thirteen, you will start to bleed. Every month the blood will come for five days, and you’ll lose all concentration. You will be angry with your brother, who plays loud rock music and counts your pimples. You will starve yourself to stop the bleeding. The doctor will reprimand you: “Cherish your eggs, for without them your species will not survive. You mustn’t grumble, this is Only Natural.”

When you are fifteen, your brother’s friend will fuck you and you will be obliged to leave school. He won’t pay for an abortion. You will give birth in agonising pain, about which there is a conspiracy of silence.

152

You will bring the child up on your own, with your parents tut-tutting in the background. They will tell you it’s your duty: you must be sure to perpetuate the species. You mustn’t grumble, this is Only Natural.

Your brother will join the army at eighteen and be shot in a foreign country. You will weep for a year, and wish you’d known him. At the funeral, the vicar will commend him for the bravery he has shown since he was a boy, and for sacrificing his life for his country. You’ll remember the spilled blood of the rabbits in your bed. You mustn’t grumble, this is Only Natural.

Natural, when your own son is born, that you buy him a shotgun; Natural that your pink plastic house with cooking utensils will be replaced with a new one when your darling daughter has her seventh birthday. Natural that your son should expect the largest helpings, the coolest toys, and the right to kill his sister's pets. What is un-natural, my girl, is the sound of your voice complaining. Do not turn on your brother. The System must be accepted, grumbling is not.

Uphold the System meekly. All of it, all of it, is Natural.

Lucy Newlyn

153

XII. The Book of Nature

On the way down to Cornwall this afternoon, I fell asleep and had a dream in which a bearded patriarch appeared at my bedside and spoke these words. I wrote them down immediately on waking, using the pencil and paper which I always carry in the glove compartment of the car, in case of sudden poetic inspiration. I was disappointed that the bearded spirit (who bore a remarkable resemblance to Urizen) didn’t speak in poetry. But you can't have everything.

The Ten Principles of the Book of Nature are as follows:

1. Never forget that the story told in Genesis is to be read allegorically, and is consistent with the story told in Origin of Species. The System is embodied in both books, and thereby reinforced.

2. Man has evolved, and become extremely sophisticated, but can never surmount his basic instinct, which is to survive.

3. The male half of the species (having more Natural advantages) has developed at a faster rate than the female.

4. It is written in The Book of Nature that women must not forget their fundamental role as child-bearers.

5. Man will only survive as a species if the female’s evolution is strictly circumscribed. All forms of social conditioning must be directed to this end.

6. Society’s primary function is to underwrite the superiority of the male; it will do this using many sophisticated methods. The methods must become more highly developed (and sometimes camouflaged) as the female of the species slowly advances.

7. It is unwise (and morally unacceptable) for a man to harm or exploit another man, except in extreme circumstances; but the

154

subjugation of females and animals is advantageous to the survival of the species, and therefore to be encouraged.

8. It is only permissible for a human to change their sex if childrearing is envisaged (and possible.) Changes in gender are allowable at the discretion of society, but only insofar as they prove to be consistent with the System.

9. It is essential that work undertaken by the female in the home is not similar or equal to work undertaken by the male outside it. The female’s work in the home must remain unpaid, lest she get ideas above her station. If she should work outside the home, then let her be paid at a lower rate than the male.

10. All branches of knowledge must be used to underwrite the fundamental principles of the Book of Nature. Some forms of knowledge will be considered superior to others in this respect, and will be recognized and remunerated accordingly. This should be done in such a way as to ensure the pre-eminence of males.

Lucy Newlyn

155