Originally posted: August 28, 2013
I pride myself on being a card-carrying, Women's Studies degree-having, privilege-checking feminist. I try to live my life in a way that is as consistent with my ideals as I can. I fail regularly, but the desire to do better is ever-present.
I pride myself on being a card-carrying, Women's Studies degree-having, privilege-checking feminist. I try to live my life in a way that is as consistent with my ideals as I can. I fail regularly, but the desire to do better is ever-present.
I also love Top 40 pop music. My mother's ringtone on my phone is a Fergie song ("London Bridge," if you must know). I own Spice World on both VHS and DVD, which I was legitimately upset to discover was pan and scan and not letterbox to preserve the cinematic girl power experience. Next month I'll be seeing Hanson in concert for the fourth time since I was 10. I'm listening to One Direction RIGHT NOW.
When it comes to my veracious love of all things pop, I find myself doing a fairly impressive amount of mental gymnastics to justify to myself that I'm not compromising my feminism in the mad dash to consume media. I am most definitely compromising. I'm not sure I can stop. Hell, I'm not even sure I want to stop. I still rock out to that awful "Blurred Lines" song. I feel vaguely guilty at first, but Robin Thicke's falsetto and that cowbell just work me up into a frenzy and I can't fight the urge to sing at the top of my lungs while stuck in traffic. And then it's over and I come down of my pop high and realize that's a song about blurring the lines of consent. Who am I?
Where do we draw the lines with ourselves about what we consume and how it reflects our ideals? What does my ability to turn off the critical part of my brain when it comes to music say about me as a person, a woman, and a feminist?
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