1. Because pockets are not a natural right.

2. Because the great majority of women do not want pockets. If they did they would have them.

3. Because whenever women have had pockets they have not used them.

4. Because women are required to carry enough things as it is, without the additional burden of pockets.

5. Because it would make dissension between husband and wife as to whose pockets were to be filled.

6. Because it would destroy man’s chivalry toward woman, if he did not have to carry all her things in his pockets.

7. Because men are men, and women are women. We must not fly in the face of nature.

8. Because pockets have been used by men to carry tobacco, pipes, whiskey flasks, chewing gum and compromising letters. We see no reason to suppose that women would use them more wisely.

This poem is in the public domain. 

Men are very brave, you know,

That was settled long ago;

Ask, however, if you doubt it,

Any man you meet about it;

He will say, I think, like me,

Men are brave as they can be.

Women think they’re brave, you say?

Do they really? Well, they may,

But such biased attestation

Is not worth consideration,

For a legal judgment shelves

What they say about themselves.

This poem is in the public domain.

 1. Because man’s place is the armory.

2. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

3. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.

4. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.

5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them particularly unfit for the task of government. 

This poem is in the public domain. 

With apologies to James Whitcomb Riley.

(“The result of taking second place to girls at school is that the boy feels a sense of inferiority that he is never afterward able to entirely shake off.”—Editorial in London Globe against co-education.)

There, little girl, don’t read,

You’re fond of your books, I know,

But Brother might mope

If he had no hope

Of getting ahead of you.

It’s dull for a boy who cannot lead.

There, little girl, don’t read.

This poem is in the public domain. 

Birthday, birthday, hurray, hurray

The 19th Amendment was ratified today

Drum rolls, piano rolls, trumpets bray

The 19th Amendment was ratified today

Left hand bounces, right hand strays

Maestro Joplin is leading the parade

Syncopated hashtags, polyrhythmic goose-steps

Ladies march to Pennsylvania Avenue!

Celebrate, ululate, caterwaul, praise

Women’s suffrage is all the rage

Sisters! Mothers! Throw off your bustles

Pedal your pushers to the voting booth

Pram it, waltz it, Studebaker roadster it

Drive your horseless carriage into the fray

Prime your cymbals, flute your skirts

One-step, two-step, kick-ball-change

Castlewalk, Turkey Trot, Grizzly Bear waltz

Argentine Tango, flirty and hot

Mommies, grannies, young and old biddies

Temperance ladies sip bathtub gin

Unmuzzle your girl dogs, Iowa your demi-hogs

Battle-axe polymaths, gangster moms

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Lucy Burns and Carrie Chapman Catt

Alice Paul, come one, come all! 

Sign the declaration at Seneca Falls!

                                                                                                          

Dada-faced spinsters, war-bond Prufrocks

Lillian Gish, make a silent wish

Debussy Cakewalk, Rachmaninoff rap

Preternatural hair bobs, hamster wheels     

Crescendos, diminuendos, maniacal pianos

Syncopation mad, cut a rug with dad!

Oompa, tuba, majorette girl power

Baton over Spamalot!

Tiny babies, wearing onesies

Raise your bottles, tater-tots!

Accordion nannies, wash-board symphonies

Timpani glissando!

             The Great War is over!

Victory, freedom, justice, reason

Pikachu, sunflowers, pussy hats

Toss up your skull caps, wide brim feathers

Throwing shade on the seraphim

Hide your cell phones, raise your megaphones!

Speak truth to power

                          and vote, vote vote!

 



WARNING: 



Nitwit legislators, gerrymandering fools

Dimwit commissioners, judicial tools

Toxic senators, unholy congressmen

Halitosis ombudsmen, mayoral tricks

Doom calf demagogues, racketeering mules

Whack-a-mole sheriffs, on the take

Fornicator governators, rakehell collaborators

Tweeter impersonators, racist prigs

Postbellum agitators, hooligan aldermen

Profiteering warmongers, Reconstruction dregs

 

Better run, rascals     better pray

We’ll vote you out      on judgement day!

Better run, rascals     better pray

We’ll vote you out      on election day!

Copyright © 2020 by Marilyn Chin. This poem was co-commissioned by the Academy of American Poets and the New York Philharmonic as part of the Project 19 initiative and published in Poem-a-Day on March 7, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.