First, an update:
This past week...good lord has it been a long one. Broken cars, epidurals for my back, strange and awful muscle pain, family, work...I need a break!! I can't even read the books I have from the library...which is truly disappointing! I have been stuck between "Oh my god I have so much to do I can't handle it so I'll sleep" and running around like a squirrel on crack because I realize I still have to do all that stuff! It's been another rough one. Someone definitely put this roller coaster into overdrive and I'm gonna need them to locate the brakes!!!
One thing I have noticed is that other people's emotions (like the boyfriend, mom, sister, etc.) have a huge effect on where my own mental state is. Perhaps I let them, but that's another problem all to itself. If the people around me are anxious, I get anxious and sad and down the hill I go. Fortunately, new doctor is on the 26th and, God willing, we will be on the track to getting meds straightened out!!
And a random thought for you to consider:
Meanwhile, in the wider world, today is voting day! Better go vote...even if, I fear, the effect will be minimal at best. I truly hope that someone gets in a position to make some major changes. Regardless of whether you are Democrat, Republican, or a flying purple people eater, I think we can all agree that there are a lot of things going on right now that need to be addressed with a realistic solution. I don't know that politicians are capable of realistic solutions, but one can hope, right?
Last, but most certainly not least, on to my main reason for this post:
One of my students recently introduced me to Spotify. And, yes, I felt extraordinarily old because I had only heard of it in passing, and still thought Pandora and Rhapsody were the only options for streaming music (which I do an unholy amount of while I'm driving across Indiana and Illinois to teach in east Egypt out there!!)
I promptly did a little research and fell in love with Spotify! By the way, if you've never used it, it's like Pandora + Rhapsody = Awesome^100 ...seriously...go...now...check it out!
Considering my blinding hatred for commercials and lack of decent local radio stations, I just hit a random list and started listening to whatever came on. It took me a couple days, but I noticed an interesting trend.
At least in the music I came across, it seems to me that men and women have sort of changed roles in the "who's more sex crazed and dominant" thing. I came across a lot of songs, some I liked some I could not stand, by female singers that were very liberated and sexually dominant. On the same note, I also found a lot of songs by male singers that were sensitive, touching, and crooning for the girl the love to come back and so on.
This led me to wonder if female entertainers are sort of speaking what most young women are feeling today--like we are being devalued, stripped of rights, suppressed. Maybe it's just a vast rebellion against all of the political and social issues circulating about women's rights at the moment. But maybe it's even bigger than that. Maybe there is a larger movement towards women asserting themselves and demanding to be the ones in control as a rebellion against how we have seen our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts act like they don't have feelings and take care of everyone but themselves.
I do come from the deep south originally...but if you ask me that any time other than now, I will vehemently deny any knowledge of such. I was raised with the typical deep south female mentality: take care of your man and keep your shit together no matter what. Literally, the last time my boyfriend and I went back home to see my family they immediately noticed he had lost quite a bit of weight, which is great right? He lost like 100 pounds because of how much working he has been doing. Instead of "Oh you look great, how'd you lose so much weight?"---all the women in the room immediately turned to me with this: "Have you been feeding him right? Are you cooking dinner? Why have you let that boy get so skinny?"
After I scraped my jaw up off the floor (though I'm not sure why I was surprised), I promptly began to tell everyone I did not let that boy do anything nor did I make him do anything. He's a grown man. Yes, I cook...sometimes....maybe.....ok not so much now as I used to but I'm in pain so bite me. Honestly, the best way I can explain the "southern woman" manner/mindset to anyone not familiar is to tell you go look up Miranda Lambert's song "Mama's Broken Heart." The first time I heard that song, I almost cried laughing because it was like hearing my grandmothers words on the damn radio!
So this all brings me back to my point, maybe these songs about "Anacondas" (which I can't stand) and "Bang, Bang"-ing (which I like) are just examples of a bigger, subconscious push by my generation against all those things we have been told to do all our lives. We don't want to just give in anymore, we want the world and everything in it...just like any man does. Maybe it's all echoing that we feel like the only way to get respect and equality in everything is to show men we want, thinking about, and need sex as much, if not more than them. That if sex is how we get control, then sex it is!
Not only that, but it would seem that even our art is beginning to show this subtle shift in mindset. As the letter from my previous post mentioned, art is often a vehicle for change. Though what counts as art might be up to interpretation...I really, really hate that Anaconda song, it's just disgusting.
And men's songs, maybe they're figuring out that the antiquated ideas of women being at the mercy of a man or sitting around hoping a suitor will come by is no longer a viable way to keep a woman in your life. I honestly think, men (certainly not all of them...stubborn asses) are maybe figuring out that expecting us to live with this double standard that seems to apply to more and more facets of life every day is not going to cut it and they better start sucking up now!!
That's right boys...start the worship now because at some point those tables are gonna turn and a whole bunch of you are gonna find out what crow tastes like!
So..hey...like...girl power...and all!! Woo!
p.s But seriously, maybe let's cut back on the outright slutty stuff? If a man ever comes at me with an anaconda, snake or otherwise, I am running the hell away.
Here's to a better week!!
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