Fariha Róisín

Montreal-based publishing entity Metatron is guest editing Everyday Genius this month. We'll be featuring excerpts from our new fall catalog as well as Canadian writers we like. Today's author is feminist hero Fariha Róisín.

Mansplain Nation

whenever i see you

you explain things to me

“is that how you 

really feel?”

you ask, taunting, 

taunting, taunting

as if you have 

the right answer, 

hidden

beneath all those 

other secrets.

what you know

or don’t know

are the same thing, 

pursed lips,

goofy mechanical eyes, 

you somehow devastatingly

question

others sincerity, but never

your own.

why is that?

“you once told me 

that

you’re not a feminist, 

you know?”

using it as a weapon, like

“how would you know 

how to be a woman?

you’re not even 

a feminist.”

Lana Del Rey,

decontextualizing 

what i said,

only to inflate 

your own cock 

momentarily;

ephemeral pleasure.

do you know 

how many times 

i’ve heard a man 

declare he’s a feminist?

only to side eye 

me and my intelligence

with a glaring swipe. 

like the finger on tinder

your insolence, 

begrudgingly spoilt 

by society’s 

insistence

to exhonerate men.

white male privilege

characterizes you,

that perennial smirk.

let me break it to you:

your theoretical understanding

of “class divide,”

reading baudrillard; habermas; graeber

(white man/white man/white man)

doesn’t make you

any less 

of a piece of shit.

waiting, 

waiting, waiting

to be acknowledged 

by you,

as if you held 

my self esteem

in an infirmary 

privatized 

by your hubris.

men only win

because their lies

seep out seamless; the 

burning empty cavity

of their plundered souls, 

linger

without exhaustion.

they’ve gotten used

to the calcified taste

of a personality 

of their own 

design;

who cares,

if they’re betraying 

themselves?

anything to not be labelled 

the dirty word: romantic,

ugh, 

romantic.

mansplain that to me again,

oh it’s so sexy 

when you

re-explain things 

to me that

i already know, or i daresay

just told you, 

e x a c t l y, 

like that, just 

seconds ago. 

remember how 

when i said k 

was

looking at my tits, once

and that it made me feel

uncomfortable?

and you said: “well 

they are hanging out, 

what else is he 

supposed to do?”

we were crossing 

a street, 

the green light was 

delayed,

and my heart 

pounded 

to that sound 

of internal mourning.

at the sight of my sadness, you 

exasperatedly said: 

“ugh i’m just joking!”

it was such 

a funny joke.

Fariha Róisín has written for IndieWIRE, Filmmaker Magazine, QuipMag and the Film Society of Lincoln Centre. She mainly writes film and culture criticism and has a podcast called "Two Brown Girls" where she discusses sexism, race and their respective implications on popular culture. She tweets at @fariharoisin.