123 A NM intervention on the OB-GYN work floor using site-specific poetry Here a child, Frédérique, got a kicking from another fourteen-year-old. Face and teeth shattered like a bowl. Why? Because Frédérique had not yet made a clear decision regarding gender. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe we have all become more sensitive. More than back then. But if we want to search for words, it’s not origins, perpetrators, mothers or fathers. The word we want is men. 2. Language If I were a man it would be easier. I’d open my self-evident mouth and every word I said would be part of a deal, an ancient hairy covenant that dozes in its basket and only wakes up when its master enters. Research shows that 80 percent of all men picture a man for the word person. When it comes down to it you do too, so do I, we all do. Unless for a second on hearing scientist, saviour, sculptor, you saw a woman before you. Language only wags its tail for men. In French human rights are droits de l’homme. The descent of man: where we all come from. Someone at home in every field is an uomo universale. Scripture spells it out as well: God has no sex – but strokes his beard, go figure. 7
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