Revisiting "IF"

That brilliant (?German-made?) biographical Dennis Hopper movie was on TV the other night [insert name here].
Although I'm not a movie buff, as you can tell!, Dennis is my favourite actor.
At the very end of the film, after the credits, Dennis recites Rudyard Kipling's "IF".
I've copied and pasted it below; and then made some personal observations.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


This verse made an enormous impression on me in the seventies.
I'm not saying it's great as a work of literature … it's not.
However, "IF" says pretty much everything about being true to yourself, regardless of what The Rest of The World is doing … and irrespective of how badly (or well) the World is treating you.
Put more simply, it's a 'call to courage'. Gotta love that!
Pure courage is in short supply these days, probably because there's no dollar profit in it.

My biggest problem with "IF" is that it excludes fifty per cent of the population!
Women are often more capable of sheer courage than men, yet Kipling's last few words effectively dismisses females from 'owning' (or even sharing) the poem.

A smaller quibble, but just as valid, is with this extract:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

OK, fine if you 'have nothing to lose' …
but what about everyone else - especially those closest to you?
An equally valid interpretation of 'risking' your 'heap' is that it's the ultimate act of selfishness, only practised by people who don't give a shit about their loved ones … OR who rate the potential 'return on investment' more highly than their family's wellbeing.
I dunno, Kipling really dropped the ball here; it reads as a bit of a rich boy's wank, which largely detracts from the value of the poem: perhaps it's a stanza too long?!