P R I S O N

 

I got the following poem from a blog friend from England. He told me that he got the idea from reading some posts of mine in my blog. (Thanks for the lovely poem, Pete:) )

 

a woman's prison is in the mind

a man's prison he will find

that pale yellow wallpaper around the room

helps the thoughts and helps to groom

 

each person has the truth inside

all it needs to open wide

truth and honesty with careful thought

deceit and hate we need to halt

 

look outside at the sun and rain

we need them both like wheat and grain

food for thought we have within

let it out to stop decayin'

 

women and men must live together

or end up as cold as a glacier

so don't think of life as a strangled cry

think of life as a small mayfly

 

flying free up in the air

looking at life so happy and faire

explosions of color up high and below

red, blue, and green and even YELLOW.

 

It is a lovely poem, do you agree? My favorite stanza is the second stanza where he wrote that "each person has the truth inside". It means what both men and women say are equally meaningful. Also the fourth stanza where he said "women and men must live together". Women and men indeed complete each other. That's what God created men and women for. This I also agree.

 

My question is even in the first two lines of the first stanza, "a woman's prison is in the mind ... a man's prison he will find ..." why not equal? What made him say that a woman's prison is in the mind? While men's prison doesn't exist yet, that's why he will find it (later).

 

As a feminist, I will say that why women's mind is the prison is caused by what men have indoctrinated women for ages that women are submissive. A woman will keep questioning, on her mind, why this male-dominated world is so cruel, why men always want to be dominant.

 

Men are of course not imprisoned by anybody, in any culture in this world. They will "imprison" themselves if they are willing to do so. If not? Of course not at all.

 

Talking about men's tendency to be polygamous, this is what one of my workmate complained to me some time ago, I told her that I don't believe in such a thing--that men have tendency to be polygamous so that we women must understand that. Men who say so are just irresponsible men and easily find a scapegoat for their being irresponsible by blaming/saying an excuse that "men are created to be polygamous." They are not willing to admit that they are just bullshit. A male workmate of mine who was there also when my female friend talked to me, he said, "It's all back to our own commitment in our own life, especially in our commitment when getting married. I think it is just natural for all of us--men and women--to be attracted to other people who are not our spouse. But, yeah ... only attraction for temporary, then come back to our own commitment with our spouse.

 

"It is obviously seen that this male workmate of mine is willing to imprison himself. Talking about marriage, well, I am not a marriage hater, just like what some people suspect me. When discussing marriage with my students, I just want to give them a clear description of what a marriage is, the position of man and woman in marriage, with many reasons that make people to decide to marry someone, where the reasons can be different from one person to another. Talking about prison ... who is willing to be imprisoned by someone else? :D

 

Semarang, April 25, 2006

 

P.S.: I copied the following writing from an old blog of mine, that doesn't exist anymore. I wrote it in 2006, it means this was based on my opinion 16 years ago. 😛 As the natural law says, I have changed too, although I still claim myself as a feminist. 😊