Feminist Playlist Week 4

We're almost there!

Day 22: Shea Diamond - I Am Her

There is an ethos that starts with the fact that women, cis and trans, aren't people. We have to argue for our humanity before we can even fight for equality. Intersectional feminism reminds that even more barriers can exist beyond just sex.

Women must fight for their space and must demand recognition. In I Am Her, Shea is singing about demanding recognition of her own humanity. Of her value.

Madame Ghandi - The Future is Female

This song, like I am Her, wherein Shea declares that she is here and she will be recognized, is another song that demands a recognition of women. The future is female, Madame Ghandi declares. We've heard that before, but what does that mean? How do we get there?

Erykah Badu - Bag Lady

We're carrying too much baggage--other people's expectations, unpaid labor, our own absorption of patriarchal standards. Erykah Badu takes this metaphor and turns it into something literal. She asks us what does this baggage serve? What does it do to keep giving it to our children?

Amy Winehouse - Valerie

Amy Winehouse was a bisexual woman and this song is about the love she felt for another woman. Yes, I've heard that Valerie is also a man's name in the UK and the original writers (the Zukons?) didn't write it that way, but this version has been adopted by queer communities around the world. We're gonna take it.

It is a beautiful love song, full of regret and yearning. I prefer this version which is stripped down and bare, rather than the Ronson version.

Solange - Cranes in the Sky

Solange said she wrote this song about being in Miami, working on albums with Beyonce, and feeling completely dispossessed. That Miami was a city always under construction and that there were always construction cranes looming over everything. It is a look about how we try to push aside our anxieties, our fears, our depression. All the things we use to distract ourselves from feeling unrooted and unwanted.

She invites us in with her gentle lyrics and suggests that the way to heal the world is through vulnerability and community. (and yes, this is a feminist thought)

Elsa y Elmar - Entre Las Piernas (Between the legs)

TW: Bodily Fluids

This wonderfully animated video is an unflinching look at the move toward becoming a woman's body, the pain inflicted on it, and especially the pain and difficulties associated with menstruation, both physical and social. Elsa y Elmar is Colombian and the video is beautifully illustrated using pre-Colombian art styles.

In the end, she sings that she embraces all of her self, every inch that is rejected, she will adore.

The Muslims- Fuck these Fuckin ' Fascists

I mean, yes. As said in another newsletter, fascism makes no place for women because women exist as nothing but a receptacle for men's hopes. The mother is just an ideal that is beaten until it behaves. And if you don't fit that mold, it advocates for your death.

So yes, I'm 100% behind the sentiments of this song. It's so fun too. And it ends with a fascist getting punched in the face.

Ending Thoughts

We're almost there! Which songs do you think I'm going to have to end the month? I want to end on a celebratory note.

I've not been reading too much this week. It's been hell week for taxes (this and next) since we're close to the deadline. I have some thoughts on the emotional elasticity and the struggle of filing taxes, wondering what your obligation is to a country that has abandoned its obligation to its citizens. But nothing solid yet.

I've been reading the next in Jesse Armstrong's Gothic 1920s mysteries. I'm on The Secret of the Three Fates. These are cozy mysteries set in the late 20s. Ruby Vaughn is definitely somewhat of an inheritor of the Phryne Fisher can-do attitude, and wealth, but in a much more formal UK where the social punishment of being sexually liberated is keenly felt. Unlike most cozies, the romance is pretty fast. I'm not sure how it will be resolved. I also don't know who the killer is in this one; I figured it out fast in the first one, The Curse of Penryth Hall.

I've been listening to Julie and the Phantoms soundtrack nonstop and I'm still very unhappy with Netflix. We were robbed. Give me a season 2! Yet, I was up at 7am this morning to watch BTS's live performance on Netflix. Several of the songs on their album improved upon live performance.

That's all for this week. Hope you're taking care of yourself. What art are you reading or watching to celebrate being the universe being conscious of itself?