You edge closer to annihilation, as though you can pull babies from plastic wombs. You forget you can be replaced by a turkey baster. Perhaps you are ignorant of Amazon warriors, Lucrezia Borgia, Boudicca or Marie Curie. Have you heard of Ada Lovelace? You cannot hear Sylvia Plath’s quietly creeping mushrooms.

Every tyrant is rightly terrified of what he has created. Beware the lying slave, the duplicitous woman, the traitorous daughter, the feminine son who will not fight. In time, should you be lucky enough to survive without female midwives, nurses, doctors, teachers, and scientists, you’ll be dragged into the future by women.

Pen Kease is a poet and artist of working-class origin who has spent many years overcoming chronic imposter syndrome with the help of higher education. Her poems are widely published, and her first collection is This Side of the Sea (Yaffle Press, 2024).