Different Therefore Equal
(Peggy Seeger)

1. Is a father better than a mother?
Is a sister better than a brother?
One's concave, one's convex
Does that make one sex better than the other?

2. Ajax' shoulders moved boulders
Helen's hips launched ships
Opposites favour their opposite's neighbour
Adam and Eve are fish and chips.

3. The world needs us, so the world breeds us
From the ant and the elephant to the little rhesus monkey
Every creature from the anteater
To the mooses has its uses.

Is black better than white? Day better than night?
Without either, there'd be neither!

4. Some weemens try to be she-mens
Then say that he-mens are worse than demons.
Nature gives us equal chances
But to git 'em you shouldn't have to wear pantses.

5. We're not like moles, does or rabbits,
We should control our social habits
And things that turn us against each other
And don't learn us to be sister and brother.

6. If her and him are indispensable,
Treatin' 'em similar is only sensible
Reason gives us the logical sequel -
We're different, therefore equal.

by Peggy Seeger, New City Songster 15, 1979,
and on her rec. "Different Therefore Equal"
Copyright Ewan MacColl Ltd.
JB
apr96