Lady God’s Unbridled Shower Playlist

On Sex And the City’s episode “A Woman’s Right to Shoes”, Carrie, the main character creates a gift registry for her wedding to herself.  Finally, her friends would have a chance to shower her with gifts. And perhaps her friend would replace Carries’s shoes. The ones that were stolen after she asked all her bridal shower’s guest to remove their shoes.  Someone decided to “borrow” Carrie’s Manolos, without return.

As my extenuated brain continues to process our class readings, these are the songs that pop up In my reflections to offer some distraction, and perhaps some insight. 

I‘do say, like Carrie, Feminine Divine does not need a fiancée or a wedding to have her own Shower playlist.

1) F*cking Perefect - Pink

“ Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss "No way, it's all good", it didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated
Look, I'm still around”

AC, “Pink - Perfect (clean version)”, March 6, 2011, Video. 3:41, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BIye98Ryic&list=RD-BIye98Ryic&start_radio=1&t=88.

2) I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor

Solarc Etnevic, “Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive  [Official Video]  1978 [Audio iTunes Plus AAC M4A]”, July 22, 2016, Video, 3:1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=197&v=ARt9HV9T0w8&feature=emb_logo. 

On Saturday, I was reading Holy Misogyny by the pool and this song came on the radio.  

One 10 year old bi-racial girl asked curiously, “Mrs. Teresita what is this song about?”

I stuttered, tempted to gush out about hetero-patriarchy, abuse, and all the ways in which she herself will have to survive.  I opted to save her bubble a little longer. I simply said, it is about surviving.

But is also about not needing to be coupled to be or feel whole.  

In her essay, The Alchemy of Survival, Erykah Chilome writes about her mother’s and her own survival within the framework of oppression and violence from and within the Christian church. 

Here are possible ingredients to the recipe for survival:

Assimilation

Solidarity

Resistance

Activism

Spirituality

Action

Seek info on Identity

Defining/ redefining

Awe

Faith

Acceptance

Escape

Acknowledgement of turmoil/pain

Awareness of: internalization, shame, loneliness...

Tools to name oppression and violence

Recollecting (Sharing Stories)

Prioritizing Self/Health

Forgiveness

Compassion

Search for Home

Healing

Chilome writes: “I have found power in a faith that affirms the whole of me with my complexity and my brokenness.” (33-34). Next time I’ll be better prepared to tell my 10 year old friend that Gloria’s song is about finding power in knowing she is enough.

3) B*tch - Meredith Brooks

Ella921, “Meredith Brooks - I'm a bitch i'm a lover (with Lyrics)”, February 14, 2010, Video, 4:08, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=6ge53QaDpKQ&feature=emb_logo

“Yesterday I cried
You must have been relieved
To see the softer side
I can understand how you'd be so confused
I don't envy you
I'm a little bit of everything
All rolled into one“

In Holy Misogyny, April Deconick presents  the  “male nor female” in the New Testament, as the representation of a God who is without gender and therefore we would be without gender in our glorified bodies.  However, Deconick wars us not be be too fast to assume that this suggests an egalitarian interpretation on the part of the community. Rather, the expectation is that all bodies will surrender and leave femaleness behind to “become male.”

In Spanish the word “bitch” is translated as cabrona, which is the female noun for carbon, a heinous insult to men labeling them as the type whose wife is unfaithful.  The word cabron’s root work is carro which I Spanish for goat.  Therefore, if your wife is unfaithful she is “legándote los cuernos o los tarros.”  Transliterated it means she is gluing horns on the men’s head for all to see that she puts him to shame.  However, the female noun for goat is not cabrona, its cabra.  Which males cabrona A male noun made female by retaining the root male noun.  This all sounds like a tongue twister, I know.  If you bear with me, I suggest that a bitch in SPanish, one to be known to not follow the conventions for decent submissive womanhood, is translated to not loose the the depiction that not only is this woman unbridled in hr ways but also in her sexuality. And in doing so machista culture would suggest that she behaves not Ike a whore, but something worse she dares to behave like a man.

4) What’s Up? - 4NonBlondes

4NonBlondesVEVO, “4NonBlondes - What’s Up? (Official Video)”, February 23, 2011, Video, 4:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=6NXnxTNIWkc&feature=emb_logo

MJD invited us to ask the question: What is going on?
In her article, she introduces the work of Lone Fatum, who seeks to being the wo/men of Thessalonians 

From invisibility into the stage.  MJD quotes Fatum, stating, “social invisibility is conceptual, it exists in the minds of those who articulate the ideal and may bear no resemblance to what is really going on.” (81).

So, what? So what is really going on? The obvious, MJD adds quoting Fatum, “social invisibility is not actual invisibility.” (81) It depends on who is doing the seeing (“eyeing”).

QUESTION:  What would it look like for women to be seen (and heard) in spheres of power, where the decision making in taking place?  What would religious spaces look like if women were not easily persuaded to forfeit their voice?  What is really going on when wo/men are assumed to not be present?

5) Espíritu Libre (Free Spirit) - Ednita Nazario

“ If I am difficult to understand

If in my way I just want to live

Not tied to your way of thinking

Not tied to your way of feeling

I am not a slave to your love

I only ask you to break the chains

To be able to feel my heart beat.”

Tania Anaid Ramos AZULA, “Espíritu itu libre”, May 14, 2015, Video, 3:59, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2MGCe5wEtwuXzUyp8wVbuw.

When it comes to gender based violence, Dr. Traci West pointed to the sounds of victimization.  In other words, the ways in which we respond when confronted with gender based violence.   

What does it sound like when we hold the sacredness of the stories of women caught in dynamics of power and control?  

What does it look/feel like to be free from dynamics of power and control?  

In which ways can generative agency be nurtured? And what are the ways in which this generative agency transform lives and communities?

What would our response be when we strip away the judgments, assumptions, and prejudice We impose on women who have suffered gender based violence?