Someone inside me wants to scream and sob at the same time
Yesterday my 77 year old father who thirty years ago told me he is certain that I hadn’t learned anything in engineering school, even though I graduated in the top three of my class, and who twenty years ago insisted that our male yoga teacher is better than the female one because “men do everything better than women” and when I gasped he explained that “yes, it’s true, don’t get upset now” since this was a “well-documented scientific fact” and I should look it up, and who ten years ago told me that his friend is saving up money to buy himself a wife and then insisted that I apologize to him for yelling since “it’s true” and “everyone talks like that.” That same father yesterday wanted to ask a question of my husband’s ChatGPT who speaks with a male voice and not mine who speaks with a female voice because “Bill’s ChatGPT is smarter.”
8 thoughts on "Someone inside me wants to scream and sob at the same time"
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Oh my! How sad. I like the breathlessness of the poem.
The title grabs the reader. The story kept me waiting for what was going to happen next. At the end I felt empathy for you.
We have a similar father. He makes a lot of subject matter. In solidarity, Katerina. A fitting poem for the day-after Fathers Day.
I could feel the frustration as the poem builds.
I am sorry, that is totally wrong and unfair. Yet, change is doubtful.
Powerful, Katerina! Our society still has much growing yet to do.
Oh dear. Old dogs and their old tricks… I half suspect him of trolling you, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.
Yep, that sounds on brand. I’m so sorry. My grandfather sat my very feminist and woman-loving then-husband down the first time we stayed with them as a married couple, and told him as though he already knew, that of course “women aren’t smart”. That explained everything to me about why I always felt uneasy around him even though others felt he was very loving and kind, and also everything about why his three offspring (all women) were so brilliant and thought they each were the singular dummies of the world, even with degrees and significant achievements in tow. And why my grandmother was depressed all her life having given up writing awards and college midstream to marry her GI. Thanks for bringing this to the light. I’m sorry you had to know it enough to be able to write so effectively about it.
Hugs!! Calls for the Serenity Prayer.