I have been thinking about how men feel permitted to commit such acts on a structural basis: the way a man may think he is allowed to behave this way because patriarchy assigns a role of "provider" or "protector" which may be suspended if he perceives a woman is not fulfilling the obligations of the "protected"; the way she is oppressed by the very role of beneficiary that has been assigned to her without her consent; the way, in a sense, that patriarchy is a form of protection racket.
My thoughts spun off to considerations of codes of chivalry, and I felt the contrast between the foundation of the Order of the Garter by Edward III of England and the rape of Joan of Kent, Countess of Salisbury, by his son the Black Prince, made this point quite well. So I wrote this poem about it, trying to contrive ironies that adequately sublimated my rage.
I have been careful to describe the rape using only contemporary reports.
I have not touched on the origins of the accused in Cologne. The incidents are primarily about violence against women. I don't think the victims really care about the colour of their assailants skin.
Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
A flash of thigh reveals a garter.
It causes quite a stir as it falls to the ground
during some sort of Plantagenet Can-Can
and the king picks it up and settles things down:
"honi soit qui mal y pense" he says,
which means shame on him who thinks ill of it,
and everybody laughs, and carries on partying,
and later they form a special club,
a sort of garter appreciation society,
for privileged men who protect women,
an order of chivalry, an indulgence in fantasy,
with bizarre initiation rituals
and wild parties.
Joan of Kent is "the most beautiful woman
in all the realm of England" says Froissart.
The prince is "stopping her mouth with such force
that she could only cry two or three cries"
and he has "left her lying in a swoon
bleeding from the nose and mouth
and other parts".
After all, "honi soit qui mal y pense",
which means he reserves the right to do
whatever he would protect her from in others,
and if she should refuse his protection
he'll make her regret it, his chivalry
no more than a protection racket.
"Like father, like son" the mother-in-law thinks
remembering the day she suffered the same way,
and the day her rapist laughed it off
over a discarded garter.
And so today cabinet ministers and princes of the realm
must be allowed to get up to all the things described
in disappearing dossiers and deleted hard drives
protected by the blue riband of their order,
and shame on him who thinks ill of it.
"Like father, like son" the mother-in-law thinks
remembering the day she suffered the same way,
and the day her rapist laughed it off
over a discarded garter.
And so today cabinet ministers and princes of the realm
must be allowed to get up to all the things described
in disappearing dossiers and deleted hard drives
protected by the blue riband of their order,
and shame on him who thinks ill of it.
Quite brilliant, thought-provoking & OMG, doesn't it make your blood boil that centuries later the problem has grown. Please publish as it deserves a much wider audience.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the appreciation, Yvonne.
ReplyDeleteIt does indeed make the blood boil in a way only a well aimed irony can begin to quell.
I know depicting the whole Order of the Garter as some sort of rapists charter is perhaps unfair to some individuals, but it is the systemic, institutionalised forms of abuse that we must dismantle.
I remember fond romantic notions of chivalry, of the idea of having the power to "do good", as a boy. Now that I am a man I can ask whose justice this "good" serves.