North America, Women and Urban SDGs: An Urban Paradigm Shift Towards Gender Equality

Urban Thinkers Campus (The City We Need NOW!)

If I was starting out now

I would not wait for permission

To join the human race

On an equal footing

Nor look for that elusive invitation

Asking me to take my rightful place

At the table where everyone can eat their fill

I would enter the men’s room

Through the glass ceiling

Abseiling from above

In an aerial display of breath-taking beauty

Wearing my favourite high-heeled shoes and

Dressed to kill with compassion

I would not mind my manners

Or pick at my food with ladylike grace

I would upset the apple-cart

With my bruised fruitfulness

I would speak out of turn

Precisely because I have a voice

I would laugh and make jokes

At men’s foibles and folly

Chastise them like children

For their war-mongering chants

I would make them clear the table

Of their devastating debris

Wash their dirty dishes

And hang out their own laundry

For all the world to see

That underneath the suits and boots

They wear soiled underwear

And socks with holes

I would teach them to mend and darn

To knit comfort blankets

And sew seams of solidarity

To learn embroidery

And other gentle arts

So that they might set the table

For us, with a cloth of flowers

And wait as patiently as we have waited

“Orders please?”

Julie Ward

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