Lady on the Board (1983)
Wholly redolent of men,
Which women mainly get to see
When bringing in the lunch or tea;
But one or two, I would applaud,
Have brought a Lady on the Board,
Either out of great acumen
Or as their ‘statutory woman’.
Either way, the eye detects
Unexpected side effects,
Which tend to make the Board Room rock
To massive metabolic shock,
And leave the gentlemen regretting
A problem of their own begetting.
For here the chauvinistic mind
Seems inescapably inclined
To place, in two main categories,
The ladies central to their worries;
Disparaging, behind their backs,
Their ‘bomb-shell’ or their ‘battle-axe’.
The ‘bomb-shell’ image is a figure
Like Marilyn Monroe’s, but bigger –
Elegant, but only just,
Clothed about the thighs and bust;
Offering like Eliot’s miss
Some promise of pneumatic bliss.
But contrary to male assumption
That pretty blondes have little gumption,
The modern version boasts degrees
Like MBAs and Ph.Ds,
And an intellect as real
As her physical appeal;
A combination which the men
Never hope to see again!
And, envy coupled with desire,
They watch the goddess rising higher
Until, with sunlight in her hair,
She occupies the Chairman’s chair.
The ‘battle-axe’ implies a style
More dependent on her guile,
Since her feministic facets
Are seen as insubstantial assets.
Eschewing every pleasure known,
To which the weaker men are prone,
She maddeningly seems to know
Everyone’s portfolio;
And, where information’s power,
Accumulates it hour by hour,
Until, by process of attrition,
She decimates the opposition.
These ancient overtones of sex
Cannot prevent what happens next,
When every Boardroom stands ajar
To women as they really are –
Good and bad, like all the others
Of their gentlemanly brothers;
Revealing – and it really hurts –
The irrelevancy of their skirts!