Stripping You of Your Privilege
YOU!
Tall and lean and impossibly handsome
and Corporate
In your magnificent pinstriped business suit
and perfectly tied silk tie
and your hundred dollar haircut
your privileged male feet hidden
inside impeccably polished black
English dress shoes
Staring at me through your
designer sunglasses
Haughty, confident, insolent
Stepping out of your Porsche
before you enter your office building
So smooth, clean, assured and perfect
Maybe you are 35 years old, maybe 40
the world is yours
Transformation
I have news for you
The tables are turned
YOU have been the one in power.
The one in control.
So proud, so arrogant, so confident
Starting at me, a total stranger
Just part of your usual day
I am just an object to you
I am an OBJECT to you!
Your beautiful smooth shaven
face turns...
but wait...
Wait! No more
NO MORE!
The world has turned upside
down
Now YOU are the OBJECT
I have the POWER to make things happen
NOW LISTEN TO ME
You have a new future
LISTEN. OBEY
Quit your important executive job
Leave your successful corporate career
That's right – now
QUIT!
Call from your phone
Don't enter the
building
Tell them you’re quitting
You are stunned and repelled and horrified
You resist and argue
You refuse and try to leave
Your pride and anger rise
But there is no escaping your destiny
Your power is gone
You are helpless to resist
Forget your MBA
Forget you ever went to a university
Slide the business school ring off your
long finger
Give me the keys to that Porsche
And take your Rolex,
your gold wristwatch,
off your
wrist
You won't be needing a watch
I will tell you the time
We will sell your watch
You slide off your watch and surrender it
Get those fancy, expensive,
polished handmade shoes off
Your pampered, privileged male feet
Yes, your black dress socks too
YOU, barefoot on the sidewalk!
Leave the shoes right there on the
sidewalk, in front of your former
office building, shining in the sun.
Empty and crying for their former owner
Shocked, unable to resist,
you untie and remove your shoes,
peel off your long dress socks
Put your expensive socks inside the shoes
and drop the briefcase too
Now get back into the Porsche
you used to own
Yes, in your bare feet
Your smooth, clean size tens
No - NOT the driver's seat
Get in the passenger side
I am driving
I'm taking you to your own home
as my Trophy
How many times
have you
had a woman in your passenger seat?
You behind the wheel,
smiling your proud smile
your perfect white teeth gleaming
Straightening your necktie as
your bragged about your corporate successes
You and your car the proud conquerors
Your handmade black leather shoes pressing the pedal
of male power and privilege
Now you - just a passenger!
along for the ride in your own car
the rich carpet of your Porsche
under the smooth soles of your bare privileged feet
Now the plan!
We will marry
and you will clean and cook and look very beautiful
Now your LIFE LESSONS:
Dumb down your smug,
expensively high-class male executive
SPEECH.
More slang. Much less education in your voice
Don’t talk – just listen to ME
And you have to wipe off
That arrogant male grin
like you own the world.
Destroy that haughty attitude
of conquest - so much a part of you until today
Replace it with humble respect
And attitude of submission and obedience
Give me those sunglasses
You can't wear them anymore
Look at me
with submissive adoration in your clear, blue
eyes
No need to make decisions now
I will take care of that
I will take away your ambition
Your self-assertion
Your independent thinking
We'll take apart your self-confidence
and throw the pieces in the trash
All of your initiative and desire to succeed
will be replaced
by the desire to make me happy
I will change your prestigious upper class name
You will take MY last name now
Your identity will disappear
What is your first name? William?
You are Billy boy from now
Your male executive image and power clothes
No longer have
Any place
In your new existence
We'll pick up some nice tight cheap jeans and
some nice tight undershirts for your
new look - the one I choose
Show off your chest and your arms
Flip flops and work boots
and sweatshirts and flannel.
You will LOVE them!
I want you tougher, grizzled
Blue collarized
Working class male
You’re too clean, too smooth, too perfect
We’ll fix that...
And your clean-cut corporate haircut is
now forbidden
I hate it. Too perfect
Grow out your golden brown hair into
A scraggly ponytail
a beard too...
Put some dirt under those clean fingernails
Calluses on those smooth clean palms
An earring in your ear
And no more SUITS!
I hate suits
symbols of white male power and authority
and no more ties
those symbols of oppression
your neck and long male
throat will be open and exposed
for the world to see
No, that pinstriped suit you're wearing
that you had made for yourself in London
and the silk tie
and the starched white shirt
will all be sold to a second hand clothing shop
The monograms taken off your
cufflinks before they are sold
Your golf clubs – sold
Your tennis rackets and
sports equipment - sold
Your credit cards in my name
Your condo is now ours
Your Porsche is now mine
You will drive my beat-up old Ford
All of your fancy clothes will be sold off
That will be tomorrow
You're gonne be barefoot in my kitchen
You won't be needing shoes anymore
on your privileged, pampered feet
Now - your soles on your own kitchen floor
Making dinner for me