I do a lot of driving — mostly back and forth from the Getty Center for my job — and since we tend to take the 405N route, we see a lot of traffic.  And because we see a lot of traffic, we also spend a lot of time listening to the radio.  We’ve noticed over the last few weeks that pretty much every time we turn on one of the Top 40 stations, one of two songs is playing — California Gurls by the ever-obnoxious Katy Perry, or Love the Way You Lie, by Eminem and Rihanna.  Link below, with language advisory:

(Note: I didn’t add the music video itself, even though it’s been released, because I think that the imagery of the video is potentially at odds with certain elements of the song that I want to discuss below.  Plus, this link has the lyrics attached)

Now, as a self-avowed feminist, I have a love-hate relationship with Eminem.  He’s wicked talented, and I love most of his music — it’s complex and thought-provoking.  On the other hand, he’s written a lot of songs about violence toward women — specifically, against his ex-wife Kim — and some of these fantasies are pretty horrific.  One particularly notorious song, “’97 Bonnie & Clyde,” is narrated to the speaker’s infant daughter as he describes how he murdered her mother and has stuffed her corpse in the trunk of his car.

But I want to leave that aside, because I’m not really writing about Eminem.  I’m writing about the issues which this song addresses, and about how our culture is dealing with them right now, and about my own experiences with them, and how we really need to change the dialog around these issues, because young women are not being served by our current attitude.

Essentially, what I want to argue is that we have it backwards.  We are telling girls that they are valued by the wrong things — and in the process, are telling them that they’re not valuable at all.  And it’s difficult to discuss, because of course if I were to ask you right now, “Should a girl value her virginity or her life more highly?” — well, there’s almost no one who would say that virginity is more valuable.  Not if they know that they’re being judged on their response.

But that’s not really what our culture says.  And by “our culture” do I mean the secular evil culture that’s constantly trying to tempt us away from the right path?

Oh, goodness, do I ever wish that was what I was talking about.

This is just an introduction — I can’t possibly say everything I want to about the topics of female sexuality, rape, domestic violence, and all the awful things that go along with those subjects in a single post.  So join me next week for Chastity and Violence week, where I’ll be posting several different essays that I’ve had in the works for a while, all on the same subjects, and organized around this theme.

Five days, five essays, five appallingly triggering topics.

Don’t get scared on me now.

Advertisement