Try to Follow Along

Just Yes. 

I feel like I had a pretty eclectic musical upbringing. I started out being heavily influenced by the founders of Rock n Roll and Pop Rock (AKA the oldies station my parents liked). Then, the 80s digitized my fancy into the age of electronica, and the 90s, while destroying Rock N Roll forever, will always have a special place in my heart. Never mind the fact that I just listened to the oldies, The Monkees, and EVERYTHING NKOTB up until about eighth grade when I heard Rubber Soul for the first time.

I used my allowance a few months earlier to buy The Cranberries Everybody Else is Doing it So Why Can’t We? on tape, received The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream and Pearl Jam’s Ten for Christmas on tape as well, but Rubber Soul was the first compact disc that I bought. Many more Beatles CDs would drain me of my allowance, including my all time favorite: Revolver that I originally had on tape from my parent’s collection along with the glorious White Album. Ugh, and that epic roundup of songs at the end of Abbey Road, the last album The Beatles every recorded (not released, look it up), makes me feel everything I've ever felt (The Beatles became available on Spotify for Christmas, and it's the only thing I'll ever need).

Much Better. 

An ocean of music would touch my life between then and now, but one thing always remained the same. I was always searching for a connection to a part of myself that wasn't always easy to find on the radio.

I am not a music critic. I am not a professional musician. I studied the piano a harsh total of two years and quit because I never played a recital. I kept fighting with my parents about practicing because I failed to see the point. Then, I played the flute from the seventh grade through my senior year in high school because I was considerably good at it and able to prove it on occasion. I continued lessons a few years beyond in college, where I also took voice lessons. Then, I played flute with a couple of garage bands in Memphis in the early 2000s, helped found and direct a musical improvisation team in Atlanta around 2010, and now I play mostly guitar for myself while I occasionally bust out the flute. And I sing Karaoke. I love Karaoke.

Yeah. That's me down there. 

I am an enjoyer of music. I appreciate music, not only for the color it brings to my life but also for the skill and effort that it requires to create. I am struck repeatedly with the quality of the effort The Beatles as a unit produced in the 60s. Just as Shakespeare is always relevant because of his appeal to the larger part of humanity, The Beatles have made a place for themselves in the annals of music history by blending effort with ingenuity to create something that connects everyone (I first spelled "annals" as "anals" which was clearly wrong but fun to write).

It takes a great deal out of a person to connect on a universal level. Art that speaks to everyone reflects the heart of humanity. Music expresses that which cannot be expressed entirely through words. Don’t take any part of that for granted. Music is the language we all understand (you can’t say math is that because I don’t understand a damn thing about math), even if...especially if we cannot find words to fully express how much it affects us. 

As I continued my search (and as Pandora and Spotify became a thing that made music more accessible), I began to be struck with the music I would find, and the way it would affect me. I was looking for, you probably guessed it, women's voices.

Damn right. 

One might argue that women’s voices do not represent the whole of humanity, and I would rebuttal that jerk in the face with the back of my hand. I wouldn’t do that. I try not to be violent. I would, however, remind him or her (him) that the same is true of men’s voices. Yet, look through history and you will find more male voices than female voices. Why? I’ll be honest. Probably because of the patriarchy and how men, especially white european men (sorry dad) have used it to subjugate anyone they deemed “other.”

I bet I know what you’re thinking. It sounds like I hate men. I don't, entirely. Not every man is voluntarily a soldier for patriarchy because a majority of men are not even aware of its effect on the way they see the world. Neither is every woman a soldier of feminism. Many women are unwittingly...and some very wittingly...patriarchal in their own views of the rest of humanity.

Weren’t we talking about music….and The Beatles? Yes, we were, but I want to travel back to the magical world of “I am paying for this Master’s degree, and I intend to use it.” I’ll begin with a question.

Case in point. 

What does it mean to be a man? Yes, that is a loaded question. The answer is much more than I could fit into the pages of a book. Literature and art have done a decent job of asking and answering. Patriarchy has been the guiding philosophy for millennia. There are countless books, poems, paintings, plays, films, and historical accounts to witness to the experience of man.

Ever heard of a little work called “Hamlet?” Shakespeare, like a resounding symbol, casts the most repeated question that has ever been posed, “What a piece of work is a man!” Then, he kills everyone. I think it speaks for itself.  

The world of art and literature could have stopped there, but it continued to pose and attempt to answer the same age-old query. Despite this, there are still many men who feel as though they don’t fit into the stratification of their own gender. It’s important to remember that Patriarchy is not about specifically male domination. In the words of Buffy Summers as “the first” in the epic feminist final season of the cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “It’s about power,” and I don’t think every man in America is obsessed with power. The Patriarchy works in mysterious ways.

Feminism, on the other hand, is about equality. Don’t be afraid of the term because it shares with the word “feminine.” Equality cannot exist until the scales are balanced, and that feat can only be accomplished if and when women (and men, to be honest) are allowed to discover for themselves what femininity (and masculinity) truly means outside of the confines of the patriarchal world view. You know what I mean........Vern?

#destroythepatriarchy

At the moment, what we know of the female experience is limited to what our society will allow, and our society is still very much under the guise of the patriarchy. Things are changing. That is clear. Women of different shapes, sizes, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, and abilities are beginning to speak loud enough to be heard over the din of popular culture. Their voices represent a larger picture of humanity that has rarely been allowed to make it to the surface.

Patriarchy promotes the subjugation of those who do not fall in line with the reigning power structure and are, therefore, considered to be the weaker parties. Feminism, on the other hand, champions diversity. Equality demands diversity, and in our diverse world, democracy cannot exist without equality.

So, yeah, let’s talk about America...but Next time.

I'm struggling with my sad brain this week, folks, but this post makes me happy, and the next one will too, I hope.

Good Grief

Let's move through the narrative of this point of view piece backwards, the way it occurred to me. I received an article about the Isla Vista killings, with the comment that some of the attitudes expressed by the shooter matched the male attitudes I addressed in my blog about sexting. Remember that one? I was talking about a (couple of) guy(s) that inappropriately propositioned me to respond positively to his  (their) genitalia pictures that he (they) sent to me via text message, or SMS if you're reading this in England or just Europe in general (yes, more than one guy did that to me).

My objective in said blog was to point out that trying to define "rape" as this specific thing was moot because people can cause mental sexual distress to other people without even touching them. There is this underlying idea behind trying to define rape as only sexual encounters that end in intercourse and ejaculation, perhaps because it is only within the last hundred years or so that it even occurred to anyone that it wasn't okay ever to force a woman to have sex with you, even if she was your wife. That specifically has probably only become unacceptable in the last sixty years. SERIOUSLY. It was okay to beat your wife at the turn of the century. Virginia Woolf talks about it in her shockingly hard while simultaneously easy to follow, stream of consciousness A Room of One's Own. Drink some coffee while you absorb that one.

And now this kid went and shot people because he couldn't get laid? Because he felt like women owed him?

There are a few arguments here, but the one with which I would like to spend the most time is the misogyny part.

It's easy to hate this guy, to look at him, as a feminist, and say, "this is why I am a feminist." He was a self-proclaimed hater of those darn feminazis.

Here we have a tragic case of a simple misunderstanding in which, the victim, said shooter, has completely misunderstood that which he hates. In his world and the world of so many misinformed men and women, Feminism preaches that women should hate men, that men are the enemy, trying to keep us down, to grind us down (illegitimi non carborundum). Except it isn't. Not actual feminism, at least.

Sometimes it's hard to define a movement of thought with just one word. There are layers to the theory, an idealism that seeks to permeate the wall that the patriarchy has built until feminism no longer requires a set of symbols (letters) to define it.

This is what has happened with the patriarchy. For ages, there was no word for this idea. It was simply...reality...at least in western white cultures. Women were simply "other," lower on the food chain, the weaker sex.

Ah, but now, now we have defined it with a word, signifiers have been organized in such a fashion as to represent this idea that has guided our thoughts for centuries. Now that we have defined it, given it a name, we take ownership of it. We become aware of it, and we are able to let it go, to see the poison it is, and to flush it out of our system.

The tragedy of being able to understand the patriarchy a bit better is what happens to the humans it still affects. We become detached, disenfranchised from reality, lost in a prison created for us by our own society...by ourselves.

The idea that women are separate from that which we, as members of the patriarchy define as truly human...with typical human experiences and responses...is what fuels the fires the fanatics light. It seems to me that this kid thought the women that rejected him, and there were apparently a lot, were doing it to him...because of him. The reality of most situations is that a man's world is not the focal point of any woman's world. The focal point of her world...is she, her. And she doesn't have it easy, even today.

I've had multiple male friends (and lovers) laughingly tell me that I could have anyone I wanted. That I have nothing to worry about when approaching a guy because no guy is going to turn down a chance with me. And I believed them for a while.

And then I started dating. I've been "dating" for over four years now, and let me tell you, it is not easy...and it is rarely pretty. NO. I cannot have anyone I want. In fact, I can rarely have anyone I want...at least these days. I have been rejected more times than I ever thought possible, but I'm still working hard, and while I wouldn't mind giving the entire male population a kick in the nuts, I certainly don't think they owe me anything (aside from everything for keeping my sisters down for so many years, dammit)...but I do worry that I owe them something...

And that's how the patriarchy affects me. I give so many men such a hard time, and I get so defensive and so angry with honest and good men because I'm worried that if I don't give them what they want, I'll be alone forever, a failure at basic human relationships. I project misogyny onto them, when it probably wasn't even there in the first place.

The truth is, rejection is just a part of putting myself out there. If I were successful 100% of the time, I'd be bored...and success wouldn't feel so sweet. I wouldn't have any reason to challenge myself, or to take things back to the drawing board, to expand on my beliefs and ideals, to care. I don't want to date every guy that falls for me, and not every guy I fall for wants to date me (ever!!!! WHY?????!!!). Life is exactly as it should be.

If I could talk to this kid, if he hadn't offed himself leaving us with no outlet for retribution or...reason to forgive, I would tell him it isn't about what you think you're owed. None of that is real. Being able to get laid whenever you want to/need to get laid isn't success.

Real success is contentment, empathy, compassion.

These are the things that make life bearable, and life seems unbearable pretty often. Falling for someone, realizing that you can trust someone, being able to accept the love someone tries to give you, those are the things that make life worth living...and none of those things actually require sex. Sex is the cherry on top...and also the whipped cream...and, if you've ever added marshmallow to your banana split...it's also that...plus chocolate.

Sex is not a right. Sex is an honor, be it attached or unattached. Respect is what makes it best. Mutual respect.

The only way to get to that is to run as fast as we can in the opposite direction of misogyny, and then get ready to fuck it up a bunch before we get it right...if we ever do.

It's hard to change, even a little bit. We feel it in the pains of those who crumble under the pressure. I'm not saying this kid did the right thing or that the deaths he caused should be written off as a simple growing pain.

I'm saying: it's time to start talking openly about what it's like to be alive. Now we come to the part of the story that I discovered at the end of my journey: the story of the grieving father.

The moment this man began to cry at the same time that he unleashed his raw feelings of rage, I began to cry...as a human being. I understood it. I have no children. I'm half the man's age...and, oh yeah, I'm a woman.

But my empathy took over, and I wept with him. Because we are both on the same road.

The patriarchy (not feminism) paints a picture of fatherhood, of leadership, as being devoid of that kind of out of control, wailing emotion. That is reserved for women, the weaker (too emotional) sex.

But it isn't devoid of any emotion, or it shouldn't be.

The only way to survive change, is to stay open and to lean on each other. We have to feel empathy and, subsequently, compassion for each other. There isn't a single one of us that doesn't struggle down the same road of life. If you meet anyone that says they don't, they're lying.

It's time to stop pretending that life isn't hard, that we know all the answers, and that we completely understand and have achieved happiness. Believing otherwise is believing in a mirage.

It's time for it to be okay for anyone to be enraged and broken hearted, vulnerable. It's time to admit that's how we all feel a majority of the time.