Gaslit

A poem about being a woman online

"There is no patriarchy"

That's what they say

These men in my phone 

These boys who are so sad, so so angry. 

"Name one right men have that women don't" 

They demand 

Because they think it's that simple

Because they think we're lying.

"Women have it easy" 

They insist 

Whilst I pour forth my rebuttal

And begin to feel disoriented, hollowed out. 

I want to tell them how it feels

To taste fear in your mouth 

Just from reading a comment section.

"What, are you scared of me now?" 

He said, 

the day after he had threatened me 

As if I shouldn't be 

As if "answer me, or I'll turn up at your house and you'll regret that" was nothing to be afraid of. 

"You're a lovely girl" 

He said 

As he put his hands down his pants

In the park on a summer day

"Wait, come back!" He shouted after me 

As if it was a surprise when I hurried away.  

"We need to toughen you up" 

He said, 

As though he wasn't slowly 

Draining me of self worth;

Making me soft to his touch.

When two men tried to push me into a toilet cubicle

They said nothing 

Straight faced, businesslike 

As if this was a normal occurrence,

While my adrenaline spiked just enough 

That I could push back and escape. 

Even men who said they loved me

Have slowly dimmed my light. 

I have become smaller, quieter

In their fragile presence. 

It's all these men I carry with me.

All these things I can taste and not name, 

When anonymous men demand 

That I prove my own oppression. 

_____

I have become increasingly convinced that to debate the men who deny patriarchal power exists is to immediately lose. Not just to ‘lose the debate’; because I truly don’t think there is a debate to be won in their minds. The whole exercise is simply an assertion of dominance, even if they don’t know it. It’s to lose your footing, your sense of safety. It’s to give in to the system the seek to uphold.

They make us feel irrational for having an emotional, even a nervous system response. They demand logic and #facts as the proof, as if our very response isn’t the proof. As if the fact that so many women immediately enter a state of fight or flight when aggressively confronted by a man isn’t all the proof we should need.

But they are often so sure of themselves, so apparently eloquent. Anger and manipulation may smoulder beneath the surface but they appear calm, thoughtful even. In a world that teaches us the emotional is inferior to the rational, this can give us pause.

Even as someone who has a podcast dedicated to debunking the junk spouted by misogyny grifters, I find myself faltering. They seem so sure that I’m wrong; that it’s me that’s blinded by prejudice. They come armed with statistics (often manipulated) and examples of ‘studies’ and they want you to give them EVIDENCE. And no, the metallic dread in my veins isn’t enough. The testimony of so, so many women is not evidence, unless it was collated by a man at Harvard.

It’s all caught up in the power structures we live within; this demand for debate. This hierarchy of evidence and dismissal of experience. I don’t want to separate facts from feelings in order to ‘own’ some dudebro on social media - that doesn’t change anything.

Sharing the true, messy nature of our experiences is so much more powerful.