Just like a woman

In Competition No. 2529 you were invited to submit a poem describing what women are like. It was Wendy Cope’s funny and poignant poem ‘Bloody Men’ that prompted the comp. There was no obligation to mimic her style, though several did. A disturbing if familiar image emerged from some, though by no means all, of your entries of women as gossipy, ball-breaking, capricious shopaholics obsessed with the size of their bottoms — with increasingly good reason as the years pass. 
Those who steered clear of cliché, or who leavened the unpalatable picture with an added twist of some kind, stood out. There were wise words from W.J. Webster, who railed against the ridiculousness of trying to define women in the first place: ‘All women are the same/ as men; it’s not their sex/ that makes, or mars, their name/ but something more complex ….’
Commendations to Noel Petty, Gerard Benson and Dominica Roberts.