When Paradise became too boring,
God, who was the Architect,
Decided to increase the choices,
To exercise the intellect.
The story of that time was simple,
A smooth-tongued snake in charge of sales
Was sent to practise on two humans
Who hadn’t heard his hard-sell tales.
When Eve had heard his presentation,
She thought that all she’d ever need
Was growing on the tree of knowledge,
(This was consumerism, not greed).
Long after the demise of Eden,
But before Noah and the Ark,
This simple and straightforward story
Was stolen by a Patriarch.
He made a wicked value judgment,
Based purely on misogyny,
He said that Eve had sinned by eating
Fruit from a forbidden tree.
He didn’t blame the tree of knowledge,
He didn’t blame the smooth-tongued snake,
He didn’t blame that wimp called Adam,
Or God for making a mistake.
Instead he blamed poor Eve for all the
Sins of Homo Sapiens,
Said he expected all her daughters
To suffer and to make amends
Though it was clearly arrant nonsense,
This myth was nurtured and maintained
By men who used it to keep women
Powerless, helpless and restrained.
Well, now we’ve had enough of stupid
Misogynistic, vicious lies.
We won’t accept that all that’s evil
Stems from a woman’s breasts and thighs.
We’ll fight against this brutalising,
Mythologising “His-story”
And we’ll re-write from the beginning
And let Eve tell us “Her-story”.
Lynne Joyce, January 3rd, 1992.