MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (Sept. 15, 2023) — While I found that all three poems we read—Audre Lorde’s “Black Mother Woman,” June Jordan’s “Poem about My Rights,” and Joy Harjo’s “An American Sunrise”—all offered much that I could identify with, Jordan’s poem gave me the most I could latch onto.
The poem demands that the world start seeing her as she is: as a woman, as a survivor of assault, as a descendant and legacy of state-sponsored violence against other states and peoples. I read it and felt her anger toward colonialism, segregation, discrimination, minimization, and dismissal.
What I felt most, however, was her anger toward sexual violence, which is mentioned throughout the poem, including in the following passage:
I am the history of rape I am the history of the rejection of who I am I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of myself I am the history of battery assault and limitless armies against whatever I want to do with my mind and my body and my soul . . .
June Jordan
Jordan demands that the world see her as she is. She demands that the world see what has been done to her. She demands the world see what it has done to her ancestral continent, Africa. And she demands the world either accept her on her terms or get the hell out of her way.
When the #metoo movement erupted, it struck me that women were beginning to experience the visibility and understanding that Jordan demanded when she wrote “Poem about My Rights.” (That visibility and understanding seems as if it may have had a short shelf life, unfortunately.) I was certainly sympathetic, as I am a survivor of sexual violence, too. But, as a man, I felt invisible during #metoo. Maybe I just didn’t feel welcome, it’s hard to say. It was certainly hard to join in on the discussion. I didn’t feel entitled or empowered or welcome to share my experience. The space was monopolized by women—or so it seemed.
Certainly, women make up the bulk of the victims of sexual violence. It does not appear to be close. But given the low rates of reporting sexual assaults by survivors of both genders, one can’t really be sure. Survivors also have to deal with society’s misunderstanding of rape (unintentional or otherwise): no ejaculation, no rape; no penetration, no rape; no physical force, no rape; no strict avoidance of flirting, no rape; no dressing up like a Saturday Night Live church lady, no rape. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever happened, it must be the victim’s fault.
In my case, I was camping with a friend. I got drunk and passed out. I woke up during the night with my pants pulled down and him on top of me, going at it with his legs locked in a vice grip around mine. I managed to throw him off, pull up my pants, and promptly passed out again.
The next morning, as I worked my way through a bitch of a hangover, I noticed everything was different—with me.
I’ll spare you the recap of decades of depression and PTSD, sexual confusion (before I learned to trust my own feelings and come out as a flaming heterosexual), drinking, suicide attempts, and more. The only thing I couldn’t experience that a woman can was the risk of pregnancy. Does that fact make my experience any less horrific? Does it make me any less a member of the survivors’ club?
When the #metoo wave broke, some men did come forward and share their experience—football payer turned actor Terry Crews is a notable example. Still, I didn’t feel welcome to the “party.” Women survivors were finally getting noticed and acknowledged. I certainly did not want to steal away any of their hard-won (and deserved) attention. But I wish some of my fellow feminists would have left a little more space for men like me at the table. Until they do, I feel as invisible as Jordan did when she wrote “Poem about My Rights.”
Reference
Jordan, June. “Poem about My Rights.” Poetry Foundation. 2023. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48762/poem-about-my-rights
When suitably inspired I will write something, maybe about a breaking story in science, maybe about my career as a scientist (specifically, a biogeographer). I may wage war against the forces of ignorance from the dubious bully pulpit of this blog. Or I may just tell some war story from my past in which I should have ended up dead as a result of my own stupidity.
June Jordan, rape, and #metoo
Posted by AbyssWriter on 9/15/23 • Categorized as Commentary,Literary Criticism,Race,Trauma
MECHANICSVILLE, Va. (Sept. 15, 2023) — While I found that all three poems we read—Audre Lorde’s “Black Mother Woman,” June Jordan’s “Poem about My Rights,” and Joy Harjo’s “An American Sunrise”—all offered much that I could identify with, Jordan’s poem gave me the most I could latch onto.
The poem demands that the world start seeing her as she is: as a woman, as a survivor of assault, as a descendant and legacy of state-sponsored violence against other states and peoples. I read it and felt her anger toward colonialism, segregation, discrimination, minimization, and dismissal.
What I felt most, however, was her anger toward sexual violence, which is mentioned throughout the poem, including in the following passage:
Jordan demands that the world see her as she is. She demands that the world see what has been done to her. She demands the world see what it has done to her ancestral continent, Africa. And she demands the world either accept her on her terms or get the hell out of her way.
When the #metoo movement erupted, it struck me that women were beginning to experience the visibility and understanding that Jordan demanded when she wrote “Poem about My Rights.” (That visibility and understanding seems as if it may have had a short shelf life, unfortunately.) I was certainly sympathetic, as I am a survivor of sexual violence, too. But, as a man, I felt invisible during #metoo. Maybe I just didn’t feel welcome, it’s hard to say. It was certainly hard to join in on the discussion. I didn’t feel entitled or empowered or welcome to share my experience. The space was monopolized by women—or so it seemed.
Certainly, women make up the bulk of the victims of sexual violence. It does not appear to be close. But given the low rates of reporting sexual assaults by survivors of both genders, one can’t really be sure. Survivors also have to deal with society’s misunderstanding of rape (unintentional or otherwise): no ejaculation, no rape; no penetration, no rape; no physical force, no rape; no strict avoidance of flirting, no rape; no dressing up like a Saturday Night Live church lady, no rape. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever happened, it must be the victim’s fault.
In my case, I was camping with a friend. I got drunk and passed out. I woke up during the night with my pants pulled down and him on top of me, going at it with his legs locked in a vice grip around mine. I managed to throw him off, pull up my pants, and promptly passed out again.
The next morning, as I worked my way through a bitch of a hangover, I noticed everything was different—with me.
I’ll spare you the recap of decades of depression and PTSD, sexual confusion (before I learned to trust my own feelings and come out as a flaming heterosexual), drinking, suicide attempts, and more. The only thing I couldn’t experience that a woman can was the risk of pregnancy. Does that fact make my experience any less horrific? Does it make me any less a member of the survivors’ club?
When the #metoo wave broke, some men did come forward and share their experience—football payer turned actor Terry Crews is a notable example. Still, I didn’t feel welcome to the “party.” Women survivors were finally getting noticed and acknowledged. I certainly did not want to steal away any of their hard-won (and deserved) attention. But I wish some of my fellow feminists would have left a little more space for men like me at the table. Until they do, I feel as invisible as Jordan did when she wrote “Poem about My Rights.”
Reference
Jordan, June. “Poem about My Rights.” Poetry Foundation. 2023. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48762/poem-about-my-rights
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