Un-grained and Guilty (02 min read)

Via: Daily Prompt – Blur

Image: Pat David, Flickr

So what do you do when you like a song that goes against the grain with you?

It’s a hit song, Blurred Lines. It’s that music, both the composition and the arrangement; the exclamations inserted in the lyrics at the right moments; the rosy filter in the video.

Even the lyrics produces a chuckle, right down to “what rhymes with hug me?”

But it’s so WRONG! Just wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong!

The first time I saw it, I was shocked into stupefaction. When my senses returned, I turned it off immediately. Then I told my feminist sensibilities to get a grip and watch what the enemy produced.

How can something produced in such poor taste sound so good?! I got hooked even as I hated everything it portrayed. From the lyrics to the music video. Even the damn hashtags were a good catch – cheap – but effective nevertheless. A road accident so gruesome that you can’t tear your eyes away…

I wondered, how could those girls participate in such a travesty to womankind? I tried to reconcile myself with the idea that if I am a true feminist, I should applaud them in their boldness.

But I don’t think Thicke meant it as a feminist movement to depict how the women of today are sexually liberated. I think it was meant to do just what it does – titillate the testosterone. Because there are men who do believe they are placed on earth as god’s gifts to women. Urgh! This song would be right up their alley, now, wouldn’t it?

It has inspired some great parodies, however. I have come to enjoy many of them. My favorite is the feminist version, Defined Lines by the Auckland University law school. No, I don’t think it’s content is extreme at all. It’s on par with the original in its tonality.

Hey, hey, hey! At least, it gave us an opportunity to #CLEARTHEAIR …

Women’s March and DJT

Image: Wikimedia

 

Via: Daily Prompt – Oversight

A few days late, I know, but the thought just occurred to me [or rather I was just prompted, heh heh].

 

Bear with my reaching wordplay here…

International Women’s Day is on the 8th of March every year. But I feel as though this year, IWD came a bit early when women everywhere – as in on a global scale – were compelled to march out and storm up a hefty protest in solidarity of sisterhood in January. And all because a certain somebody couldn’t keep his greedy paws off of the grandest chair in the USA. An oversight on his part, if I ever witnessed one. But then, just add it to the basket full of other examples of his thoughtlessness.

A veritable powwow.

Yet, I feel like we need to thank DJT for forcing this supposed inconvenience upon our annual schedule. While we ladies really do like to get together and take a moment every year on IWD to pat each other on the back for the long we have come from the days when our ancestors fought for their suffrage, rarely have issues activated female solidarity in such ranks. A couple of my favorite such scenarios are as follows:

Image: Mark Dixon, Flickr

Women’s March on Versailles of 1789

 

On the morning of October 05, 1789, Women took to the marketplace of Paris to protest high prices of food and scarcity of bread. It was one of the earliest and more notable uprisings in the French Revolution. In fact, it led to the famous storming of the Palace of Versailles that toppled King Louis XVI.

Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913

Image: Adam Cuerden, Wikimedia

Officially dubbed Woman Suffrage Procession, the parade on March 03, 1913 drew thousands of suffragists to Washington D.C. on the morning prior President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in protest of women’s exclusion in the U.S. political system. While pre-event sentiments were largely hostile, an outbreak of assaults upon the participants at the procession produced quite the opposite effects with a nation left in disgrace, adding fuel to the fire in support of the movement. In fact, apart from keeping African American women segregated to follow in the line, the event scored a grand victory for women’s liberation.

So…

It appears that when we women get together, things really do get moved along in the right direction. I say we stick to the streets then.

 

I hope this post motivates. I would love some feedback. Better yet, why don’t you drop me a line in the comment section on any particular women’s movement that really inspires you.