MY PLEDGE TO FIGHT FOR GENDER EQUALITY

From my mouth to God’s ears. I hope She’s listening and likes puns

By Keith Friedlander

You are ‘ode’ far more than this,
but it’s a place for me to start,
An opportunity to wax lyrical,
And to speak freely from the heart.
 

For years I’ve lived in ignorance,
Within my rose colored bubble I did see,
A world that doesn’t discriminate,
That treats he, she, us all equally.
 

Turns out that ain’t the truth,
My idealist self was burned,
But the more I dug the more dirt I found,
Right down to every dollar earned.
 

As humbling as it was to learn,
I realized that change engendered within me,
Because sexism is implicit,
Such as being taught that God was He.
 

It seems lore in many pockets,
To accept this as ‘just the way it is’,
But I reject that way of thinking,
Especially if it’s “his”.
 

My eyes have since been opened,
As my will begins to harden,
Why in the world are men put first,
Right back to Adam in his Garden?
 

Almost all of history’s great battles since,
Were started by us males,
Blood was shed and lives were lost,
Yet heroes immortalized in tales.
 

But what about the thankless sheroes,
Sharing and shedding blood for another,
Plus giving life instead of taking it,
The mightiest warrior, Mother.
 

Dear Women, you are our bearers,
Even before our coming into being,
Yet it took me 30 years and 3 degrees,
And only now I’m finally seeing,
 

That for all my life and the lives of those,
Who’ve come and went before,
Absurdly you’ve always been given less,
Despite always giving more.
 

So let’s rise up and help those who,
Together hold up the sky,
Because we deserve no undue privilege,
For receiving an eXXtra Y.
 

We shall open our mind, open our heart,
Because with just a little space,
Inequality becomes in_equality,
For gender, religion and race.

They say the future is female,
But WOMEN are our present.
Within them I see ME & NOW,
So it’s time to represent!