Equal ♀

“Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacity,” said Ghandi.

We have access to equal rights

As men do

Let's not make it a war, a struggle,

Let the sexes work together-

There is an International men's day too.

© Amanda Derry

International Women's Day 2019: How the day began and why the fight for women's rights is still necessary

Amanda joined a Creative Writing class, following a breakdown, which played a significant role in her recovery. She now embeds literacy skills into classes that she teaches.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow ♀

It is widely believed

that women protests
against male domination
and the quest for equality
is a modern phenomenon.
Not so. Throughout history
there's plenty of testimony
that women always battled
against male hegemony.
There are many examples
that in many a nation
females were subjected
to discrimination
but there were also some
who declined to be egg carriers
and succeeded in breaking
taboos and barriers.
From Boudica to Queen Bess,
Marie Curie, Marie Stopes
and a legion of others,
many ladies have proved
that power and success
are not the prerogative of men.
I abhor misogyny
and favour philogyny.
But while some fuss
that there is them and us
I remain an optimist.
I have faith that man
will stop being a chauvinist
and hope that no woman
will ever be a misandrist.

© Luigi Pagano

International Women's Day 2019: How the day began and why the fight for women's rights is still necessary

Luigi has published four collections of poems: ‘Idle Thoughts’, ’Reflections’, ‘Poetry On Tap’ and 'Cherry on Top'. His work has been featured in ABCTales’ magazines, UKAuthors’ anthologies, Poetry24 and several other publications.

Maleficium

“There were neither witches nor bewitched until they were talked and written about. [Better is] silence and discretion.” – Salazar, lawyer & objector to 17th century witch-trials.

In an enlightened Ireland, colonised no more
by England or Rome or anywhere,
nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Nonetheless, here it is, like the triumvirate
of headmaster, priest and guard who once
governed intimate relations in the villages.

Ideologues lobby and bullies jockey;
careerists territorialising biological turf,
comically aped by their cosseted wags.

They rail, apoplectic, and insist on the charge
that the gravid female can feign suicidal ideation,
as if in fear that there be witches here.

They’d make her swim to test her guilt, if they could.
Instead, if her mood lifts too much post-partum, they’ll nail her
with a sentence heavier than any laid on a serial killer.

If, perilously inseminated, she’s any sense, she’ll choose
the water terminus by boat or plane herself over long-term
dominion of a misogynistic, hypocritical and archaic system.

Otherwise she’ll be tried by a panel of three untouchables,
her evidence and confession extorted in exchange
for the indelible stamp of insanity on public record.

She’ll be stigmatised like the sacked midwives,
last refuge of conscientious women, before her;
both loath to inflict on ill-begotten unborn embryos

the perverse right to mean lives induced by
breeding-mongering cadres of mostly male gynae pros
bleeding the world and his groaning wife dry.

© Caroline Hurley

Maternity hospital masters differ over suicide provision in planned legislation

Jail term of up to 14 years for a woman who has an abortion in Ireland ‘bizarre’

Witch trials in the early modern period

Caroline's poems have previously appeared in Poetry24, as well as in The Electric Acorn, threemonkeysonline.com and in ESOF's 3nd Science Meets Poetry anthology. Clebran.org featured a chapter from her novel and some flash fiction. Her current focus is on young adult fiction and screenwriting. She lives near an Irish bird reserve.