Many years ago Alanis Morriset released a song called "You Oughta Know" and I liked that song. It was once panned on a radio station that I listened to as "The Psycho Bitch Song". I chuckled at the time as it being something clever, but I have long since rethought that position.
The song is reportedly about Alanis' affair with David Coulier of Full House fame. Not having been in an affair or really knowing the mechanics of that kind of relationship, there is a lot of information in the song that I can't empathize with. However, this is a song of a woman wronged. Those are genuine emotions being described. She has been used and discarded. She has every right to complain about the lack of respect and care that she has been handed. I've tried most of my life to be respectful of the women in my life, most of the time being completely amazed by them, but there have been selfish times where I didn't act properly, said things I shouldn't have. I can't imagine doing it on this level.
Recently another song has come out by another woman titled "Fight Song". Another song of empowerment (without a man in the picture at all, which is great). I have spent a good deal talking and writing to women who have come out of a patriarchal organization and I'm still fascinated by how incredible the transformation of these women are reclaiming their lives. It has given me a lot to think about and how I don't want my daughter to be in a position to have her life and goals in any way lessened by anyone or anything.
Huh. You know, I had a stalker in college. I called her that most of my time since. I've since learned how unfair that was. I know by my own experience how powerful expectations and failed results, for that matter, can work on a person and push them a bit over the edge. Yeah, I was a good date and I had that magic "Returned Missionary" label. I felt my mission was a failure because of my depression and my inability to sell God with any success. As I was pushed towards a mission most of my teen years, she was pushed to marriage and only to an RM. If you want to get to heaven, you need to do that. God, what a thing to live with. So here I was a guy right off the mission who had a good year previous to think about how to date and be someone that a woman wanted to be around. She hadn't dated much at all and I was more than willing to listen to her. We could vent our frustrations to each other. She saw me as the one. I'm sure she felt levels of panic when I went out with someone else.
It didn't end well. She threatened someone else I was seeing, not even dating really. I understand what it is like to see expectations fall around you and being impotent to do anything about it. Why it took me years to realize it, I am truly sorry. It doesn't excuse the threats, but I now understand it. I hope she found a way to be happy. I hope she realized her potential, and that her life and happiness isn't tied around the expectations of a man or of an institution that tells her how to live her life.
I hope that my daughter finds her own fight song, and doesn't put up with any male dominated crap. I want to to be happy with who she is and make the decisions for her own life, for her own happiness. I want her to be strong. I want all the women in my life to be strong. It is so much more interesting that way.
You Oughta Know
Fight Song
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