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Feminist Resistance & Humor in Janelle Monáe’s “Yoga”

8/11/2015

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I first witnessed the music video when I was on the treadmill at the gym. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical: I do lots of yoga and for me it’s a physical and spiritual practice that gets my head right and prevents my neck and back from causing me major problems. It’s not something I ever feel sexy doing. I’m way too worried about my spandex inching down my ass and my boobs falling out while I’m in downward dog, not to mention the loud Ujjayi sounds I make with my breath to distract myself from comparing my body to the skinnier and leaner ones next to me adorned in Lululemon. I also fart a lot. See? Not very sexy.

But Janelle Monáe reminds me that in addition to all of the things I express through my body, like my awkward attempts at asanas, the occasional yoga breakthrough (like that one time I did full-on wheel pose ALL MY MYSELF in my living room), and my commitment to groundedness, my body is also a sexual body, even while doing yoga. I know, I know, Janelle is singing about getting down at the club, but there’s something about the song that gets me thinking about how yoga has helped me to be more comfortable in my body, especially since experiencing sexual assault. It has helped me to be more confident, healthy, and self-aware, more focused on my body’s (physical, emotional, and sexual) needs, and more flexible (mentally as well as physically). It hasn’t drastically changed my physical appearance, but I have certainly developed more of an existence of being in myself, if that makes any sense. Yep, yoga has been life-changing for me.

So, back to the song. If you haven’t heard it, you must. It’s super catchy and fun and sexy and even better because it’s written by a six-time Grammy nominee on her own record label. The video is great because I can dance along to the chorus (seriously—the moves are super follow-able for us the common folk who wish we could dance and actually feel like we can kind of dance with moves like this) and feel all empowered while I do it with lines like: “I ain’t got no worries, I’m my own private dancer” and “Crown on my head but the world on my shoulder / I’m too much a rebel, never do what I’m supposed ta.” Not to mention that I love how Janelle takes yoga out of the context of studios filled with upper white class women and owns it by her own terms. 

And then there’s the last part of the second verse: “You cannot police me so get off my areola, get off my areola.”

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So this is the point as you’re reading this that if you haven’t seen the video, I recommend you watch it now. I’m serious. You have to watch Janelle’s face when she sings, “areola.” It’s this amazingly awesome moment in which she achieves a balance of resistance, boldness, self-awareness, and humor. Whether she is speaking to the truths of black women or all women, she’s saying something about the policing of bodies and sexuality and sexual expression and self-expression. And the way she does it is brilliant, because it is inviting rather than alienating. Some folks have suggested that she’s making a nod to #freethenipple, and that may be true, but I think the line is about so much more than that.

It’s a reminder about how women’s bodies are still objectified, commodified, trivialized, and controlled. It makes it seem ironic, then, that “areola” was censor-worthy when Janelle performed “Yoga” on The Tonight Show back in May. If you listen closely, she actually sings something that sounds like “little ola.” The performance is still great, but come on. I didn’t even know “areola” was considered profane, let alone not suitable for late-night programming. Still, Janelle reminds us that “Sometimes I’m peachy, and sometimes I’m vulgar / Even when I’m sleeping I got one eye open.” She may have self-censored, but she’s aware of it and she will find other ways to express resistance. At least this is what I like to think about her performance.

At any rate, I’m still in love with the song and the way Janelle creates space for bodily agency and empowerment. Though some arguments can be made for “Yoga” catering somewhat to a hetero male audience—and such points made stronger by some of Jidenna’s lyrics—Janelle has made it clear in the past that she’s a feminist and that she is “not for male consumption.” In a culture in which we are still struggling against slut-shaming, abstinence-only education, rampant sexual violence, and victim-blaming, “Yoga” offers an affirming path for self-loving sexuality.

I think the key, as Janelle models, is to not take ourselves too seriously. Some of my favorite yoga instructors offer the same mantra: work hard, but do it with a sense of humor. This kind of feminist resistance is fierce and focused, but invitational. Feminism, like yoga, should be flexible and self-aware and strong, but it can also be fun, sexy, humble, and willing to laugh at itself. And if this is the kind of feminism we engage in, maybe more folks will join us. After all, no one wants to join a yoga class full of uppity snobs only concerned with appearances and showing off. Let’s flex our humor-filled feminist muscles with Janelle. We might even achieve a kind of feminist nirvana.
 
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 I am Not Madonna:   Sexual Entitlement in "Bitch I'm Madonna"

6/24/2015

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PictureHalloween 2011
There is a lot to almost love about Madonna’s new music video. You’ve got cute little white girls at the beginning dressed up all 90s Madonna-style, cameos from a handful of superstars, and the Queen of Pop herself. “Bitch I’m Madonna” has the potential to be the next hashtag movement that embraces self-love, glitter, fame, and power. Sounds fun, right? After all, I too am Madonna. Really. I rocked my Madonna self at Halloween a few years ago, lace gloves and all. I’m a fan.

So when I watched the music video to find Madonna stumbling around at a party, appropriating other cultures, and teaming up with Nicki Minaj to make sure “these hoes know” that “Bitch I’m Madonna,” I was surprised and frankly, profoundly disappointed. I think of Madonna as a feminist  
icon, an image of sex-positive empowerment, a goddess. When I watch the video I do not witness a Madonna of fierce, sexy independence; instead, I watch someone on a power trip attempting to retain her legendary image at the expense of others, and at the expense of what has made her so fabulous in the first place.



In “Bitch I’m Madonna,” Madonna models the kind of sexual entitlement many of us are sickened by in predictably sexist music videos like “Blurred Lines.” Case in point: about two minutes into the video, Madonna walks up behind a guy seated at a bar, pulls him backward by the hair, pours a drink in his mouth, then pelvic thrusts him from behind. The guy is caught off guard, and the directors of the video don’t even make an attempt to make it look like this he enjoys any of what Madonna has just done to him. Though I appreciate the attempt to queer up this moment a bit with the woman who simultaneously pelvic thrusts Madonna from behind as Madonna thrusts into guy at bar, this moment falls very, very, short of being consensual. If a dude did this to a woman we as a public would be super angry. Being a woman, or being Madonna, does not make it ok.

Second case in point: about a minute later when Madonna grabs a woman at the top of the stairs, pushes her briskly against the wall, and kisses her. In this instance, the woman is smiling as Madonna grabs her, so it is unclear if what happens is consensual. But the message here is that it’s super sexy to act upon other people’s bodies as long as you own it, and have the social capital to do so. Sadly, I have witnessed women at parties who have done just this to my friends, especially when said friends have had a few drinks and can be caught off guard enough for the instigator to think they can get by with it. And they have. But let’s be clear: this is sexual assault. And being a woman does not make this kind of behavior acceptable, however famous you are.

We need to look past gender stereotypes enough to realize that the “Bitch I’m Madonna” kind of Madonna is one predicated on sexual entitlement and power at the expense of other people’s bodies. There are so many other ways Madonna could embrace power, queer sexuality, and sex positivity without treating men like animals and women like passive recipients of her prowess in this video. It seems like the “bitch” to which she is referring could be anyone she feels entitled to act upon, or anyone who might disagree with her behavior because, after all, she’s Madonna. But this is not the kind of Madonna, or the kind of “bad bitch,” I want to be.

If I am going to reclaim the word bitch at all, it is with abandon. It’s in a Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” kind of way—a reclamation that is fun and powerful and, most importantly, not at anyone else’s expense. The big difference here is that when Gaga tells us, “I’m a free bitch, baby,” and when I sing along and claim this for myself, it’s about choice. It’s about bucking the system, being labeled a bitch, and then co-opting that label in powerful reclamation. “Bitch I’m Madonna” takes on a controlling, dehumanizing kind of power, and there’s nothing sexy, liberating, or fabulous about that. 

#iamnotmadonna
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The Love Monster

6/8/2015

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“He ate my heart...he a-a-ate my heart” --Lady Gaga

When I was a full-time prevention educator at a crisis center in the rural Midwest, I used to facilitate this “monster” activity with kids in early elementary school classrooms. After a few visits in which I talked about healthy relationships, body boundaries, and respect with the kids, I’d introduce this activity to get them thinking about how to express what makes them scared, how to speak back to what makes them upset, and where they can go for help if they need it. I love the activity because it involves creativity, crayons, and healthy coping skills; they love to color and share their masterpieces.

It goes like this: I ask the kids to think about something that makes them scared, angry, upset, or sad. I hand out coloring sheets with an outline of a monster that they can color however they want based on how they feel. It’s awesome watching them go to work, and even more fun to ask them what they would name their monster, and what sound it would make. They get super into it, and I adore watching them express themselves. When they are finished, I help them talk back to their monsters (they repeat phrases like, “You don’t win, monster!” which is, of course, empowering and fun for them) and we talk about how it’s ok to feel lots of different emotions, how to deal with them in a healthy way, and what to do if someone is hurting them.

A girl in a kindergarten class I visited last year named her picture, “The Love Monster.” Unlike many of the other children who had colored scary or angry monsters, her monster was cute and covered with red and pink hearts. When I asked her why it was called the love monster, she explained that a boy at school was “in love” with her and would not leave her alone. This made her frustrated and angry. I was so struck by the picture that I don’t recall the exact details of this situation, though I know we talked about how if a boy wouldn’t leave her alone it was not ok and that she needed to tell (and keep telling) teachers and other adults about what was happening if he didn’t stop.

The Love Monster stuck with me because I think it suggests some realities about how girls are taught to deal with sexual harassment, abuse, and assault. We are often taught to politely decline or ignore advances, smile through our anger, and minimize potentially violent actions because “boys will be boys.” Many of us, regardless of gender, may grow up mistaking attention for love, and sometimes it becomes difficult for us to differentiate love and respect from abuse and control. When Lady Gaga sings, “That boy is a monster,” I think one thing she’s capturing is the complicated sort of way many of us have become used to being consumed and disrespected by people in our lives. We may even love these individuals, even though we know they are “wolves in disguise.” Even though we may know we deserve more than that.

We need to teach kids (across a continuum of gender) what real care and respect—and love—looks like. We need to teach them what it means to care for and respect and love themselves as well as others. And we all need to learn how to deal with “Love Monsters” in both polite and impolite ways. It is not always easy. I know I am still learning. Perhaps that is why I love that Lady Gaga song so much.


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Empathizing with Chris Brown

10/10/2013

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Let’s talk about traditional masculinity. It expects men to be heterosexual, hypersexual, always sexual. It demands a performance of hardness and strength and leaves little room for showing or admitting vulnerability, tender emotion, or weakness. It entices boys and men to view sex with girls and women as conquests that prove their manhood, their worth.

We don’t talk about sexual violence committed against boys and men enough. If we did, we might recognize that our very rigid adherence to binary gender roles—and the maintenance of traditional masculinity as a part of this system—can make it very difficult for someone expected to perform “MAN” to tell someone they may have been abused—or to even admit that to himself.

So I’m really not surprised that Chris Brown, in a recent interview, apparently bragged about losing his virginity to a fourteen year-old girl when he was only eight. He spins what you or I might consider child sexual abuse as early practice for “being a beast at it….the best at it.” However he chooses to label his experience is not really my concern, whatever expertise I might have about these kinds of scenarios. If anything, Brown’s experience—or his telling of it—demonstrates the massive pressure men are under to perform heterosexual masculinity, whether at eight years old or twenty four.

I was surprised, however, at how one writer for Jezebel responded to Brown’s comments:

“Of all the pop stars milling about the culture [sic] landscape these days, Chris Brown has a singular talent for making it impossible to sympathize with him even if he’s recounting a vaguely traumatic incident from his childhood. You know, like that time he lost his virginity to [a] teenage girl. When he was eight.”

In a rape culture world that constantly blames and silences victims, is our hatred of Chris Brown’s abusive behavior so powerful that it prevents us from thoughtfully reflecting on his own experiences of victimization? Whatever education Brown got from his peers, pornography, or witnessing the abuse of his mother by his stepfather has undoubtedly played a major role in how he views and treats women. It does not excuse what he’s done, but it provides one window into beginning to understand his abusive behavior within the context of a patriarchal system that teaches men they need to dominate women to feel any sense of power.

I do not find it impossible to empathize with Chris Brown. I do not believe his abusive behavior should be tolerated or excused, but I refuse to hurl hatred at him because he seems to have minimized an experience of early victimization. Dismissing Brown as being “impossible to sympathize with” oversimplifies the complexities of sexual and partner violence and positions him as a scapegoat for many of us—especially white folks—to pile on layer after layer of anger we have toward men who commit violence against women. When we focus all of our attention on the individual behavior of one person, we underemphasize that gender violence is a systemic issue fueled by toxic gender expectations.

I empathize with all of us for having to deal with this screwed up system. I empathize with men who feel so powerless in their own sense of self that they feel they have to prove it through abuse and sexual violence. I empathize with men who got there because they were emotionally, physically, or sexually abused themselves. This reality is a cultural failure which we all share responsibility for changing. Perhaps we can start by investigating the complex negotiations behind each façade of masculinity. 
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    Jenn Freitag, Ph.D. is an educator, activist, scholar, and performance artist committed to ending gender violence. 

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