{"id":359,"date":"2017-10-16T22:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T04:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitalhumanities.milesfarnsworth.com\/?p=49"},"modified":"2017-10-16T22:16:01","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T04:16:01","slug":"the-relevance-of-the-worlds-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancroxall.net\/f17dh\/student-posts\/the-relevance-of-the-worlds-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"The Relevance of the World\u2019s Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to start out talking about my favorite poem from the first half of\u00a0The Worlds Wife:\u00a0<\/em>Mrs. Midas. No doubt a familiar story aided my enjoyment. The poem read (and many of the others) read like some thought experiment which asked, “what are the real consequences?” For example, what really is the consequence of everything turning to gold? Some of the lines felt so real that the story surely had to have taken place this way. “I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone. The toilet I didn’t mind.” My favorite visual of all was the golden dew on the grass which let Mrs. Midas know she was approaching his house in the woods. The most tragic line of all was the end. “I miss most, even now, his hands, his warm hands on my skin, his touch.”<\/p>\n

What’s really been on my mind in reading this is the importance of women’s perspective. The horrific details of Harvey Weinstein’s enduring assaults, and the subsequent\u00a0stories beginning and ending with “Me Too” make the World’s Wife all the more relevant. Locally, the Instagram Account @provoguysamiright shared dozens of stories submitted by local women (and men) about assault and abuse. It’s hard not to feel a pit in your stomach reading about these narratives.<\/p>\n

I don’t feel like the World’s Wife was about abuse, at least not a majority of it. It is about women having a voice in a Western Culture obsessed with a male perspective and male reactions. As a male, it’s inadequate to enjoy these poems simply for a new perspective or alternate voice. With any luck, and upon my agency as a human, these poems can over turn deep-rooted mentalities and biases within myself and my gender. I know, and hope, they will.<\/p>\n

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Guys, it’s our turn.<\/p>\n

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Guys, it’s our turn.<\/p>\n

After yesterday’s endless #MeToo<\/a> stories of women being abused, assaulted and harassed, today we say #HowIWillChange<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Benjamin Law \"\ud83c\udf08\" (@mrbenjaminlaw) October 16, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n