Let's Talk About Mad Women (For the Swifties)
I was at a gathering with some people I had never met before. After some awkward formalities were exchanged, a string of well-designed dark humor lightened the room, and we all felt at ease. We ate dinner, and we sat down in the family room. And even though some of us had never met each other before, we were all able to sing and dance, and have a good time. We started playing music videos on the television screen, and the kids, who thought they were dance connoisseurs, tried to master some seriously complicated choreography in a matter of a few seconds. In one such music video, there was a visual of a guy who aimed a tennis ball at a girl’s behind, a girl who was clearly uninterested in him just a few moments ago. The girl, then, turned around flirtatiously and started dancing with the guy.
I was shocked.
Not at the music video. That I am, sadly, used to.
I was shocked at how no one else in that room was as furious about it as I was.
I said, without even thinking about it, “Are we not going to talk about the music video?”
Some guy then said carefully, “In what sense?”
I looked at him firmly and said, “In the objectifying-women sense.”
Following that supposedly bold statement were a series of groans and it’s-just-a-phase looks. After that moment, the kids stopped dancing and we all stared at the screen in awkward silence, and the room tensed up like we were strangers once again.
Maybe I suffer from the constant need to overanalyze things (yes), maybe I’m exaggerating the story a little bit for dramatic effect (also yes), but that night caused a whole bunch of concerns that weren’t really there before.
I thought about what I said over and over, I thought about how I could have conveyed it less aggressively, I thought about how I could have cracked a joke after to lighten the mood, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have said anything.
I thought about how messed up it was that I had to think about these things.
And then, suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, a Taylor Swift lyric popped into my head (HEY, don’t come at me, you read the title). In one of her songs from the brilliant folklore, Taylor wrote “She should be mad, should be scathing like me, but no one likes a mad woman.” It’s simple, not her most eloquent, nothing I really paid attention to until after that night. And then I had a deep understanding of that lyric. It’s as simple as this: people are mad at us for being mad. Because why, why would they ever want change in a world that works for them so perfectly. And in the fear of people being mad at us, we sit in silence, acquiescing to everything, from the tiniest subtleties to the inhumane consequences of patriarchy. We choose not to see domestic and sexual violence rates shoot up, we choose not to recognize the immorality of problematic music videos since it creates discomfort, it makes us want to speak out. But we can’t speak out, because, like Swift put it, “no one likes a mad woman.”
And when we work up the courage to look past that and say something, we’re called rebels without a cause, kids with a lot of heart and no brain, innocent, naive.
Our youth and “immaturity” is used against us, when in reality, if someone felt the need to personally insult my lack of intelligence due to my age instead of making a logical argument like a grown-up, I guess I wouldn’t be the only immature one in the room.
Yes, I am mad, but I’m not a mad woman, I’m not crazy for being mad. And honestly, at this point, I’m sick of the gaslighting. It’s getting really old.
If there is a problem, I’m going to point it out. And it’s not my job to make sure that you’re comfortable with it before I do so. I’m not going to make myself smaller for your convenience, all in the name of being “less emotional” or “more assertive.” The feminist movement has spent way too much time and effort in trying to be a people-pleaser, going back to the lack of women of color in the women’s suffrage movement. The idea of equality between the sexes has been so controversial for so long that we tried, for decades, to make it less polarizing. But we are past that point because of the feminists who came before us. We are past the point where we had to acquiesce and conform. We are past the point where we had to either convince ourselves that we were happy despite our lost potential or become severely disillusioned. And honestly, I am past the point where every time any sort of conflict occurs because of my beliefs, I automatically become apologetic.
The truth is, having this discussion would be a lot easier if the groans and the unnecessarily judgemental looks came from horrible people. But they weren’t horrible people. They were nice, everyday people. They were amazing hosts, and they made everyone feel welcome and included. And I genuinely enjoyed their company.
The truth is, having this discussion would be a lot easier if we were open to having discussions, instead of blatantly dismissing the concerns of supposedly “mad women.”
And then I got to thinking about how much better the people around me could have handled the situation: they could have recognized the stupidity of the music video and changed it to something else, or if they disagreed with me, they could have gotten into a polite discussion with me about their viewpoint.
But until we get to a place where this type of conversation is normal and frequent, I guess I’ll just be a mad woman.
