Yesterday I wrote a post about the insidious nature of sexism in the workplace.  Then, based on a bit of positive response to it, I decided to post it on Reddit (in their Feminism subreddit).  I would call this a mistake, but putting things on Reddit to share with a wider more targeted audience isn’t a mistake.

The mistake for me is ALWAYS going and see what people thought about it.  As has happened before, I posted something and was judged rather harshly about my interpretation of events.  Basically, according to four anonymous people on the internet, I am a fool for going to a sports bar with people I don’t like and finding that I dislike the people and the subject of sports.  There was more, but you can go read the comments for yourself.  I shouldn’t have, except that they have managed to get the wheels in my brain turning now that the fog of self doubt has begun to lift.

It’s not actually a big deal in any rational sense, but I am a pretty sensitive person and I question myself very easily.  Upon reading these things, I immediately thought that I had completely overreacted, that it was indeed my fault for being in the situation, and that yes, I suppose it is the price I have to pay to play with the boys.

Does any of this sound familiar?

It’s true.  It was my fault for going to lunch with these guys.  When talking about where we should go, the place we went was called an Irish Pub by the person who recommended it, but yeah, I should have asked if it was a sports bar and then upon finding out that it was a sports bar, I should have either protested, not gone, or should have pretended to be interested…or simply be quiet (please note, I did do the last two things, like a good little girl).  And if I was being ignored, it’s because I didn’t have anything to contribute worth listening to.  I can’t expect to be listened to if I’m not saying anything of note.  And if my political comments were misunderstood and used instead to comment about how hot conservatives on Fox News are, then, well, I shouldn’t be pushing my political agenda on anyone.  I should just listen to the conservative boys and suck it up.

Of course, I can’t really blame them.  I didn’t put a ton of background into the post about things I have endured over the past several years…things I just sucked it up and dealt with to be an agreeable cog in this particular machine.  It was suggested that my dramatization of what conversation might have happened had I not been there was ungenerous and simply showed my extreme dislike for these people.  Well, sure, I guess it could look that way…but I have walked in on conversations like that when they didn’t think I could hear.  I have very good hearing, and have listened to countless homophobic references, racist remarks, and watched as visiting female salesmen from other companies have been objectified by boys looking out windows.

What I also didn’t say was that this was a professional situation.  And in careers like mine, if you want to really get ahead, you have to make your mark.  Here this meant that I not only had to look good in the technical meeting, but I also had to either not go to lunch and be less visible by management and customers, or go where ever they wanted and…suck it up.  There is a fight happening everyday for women everywhere to be respected and accepted as professional equals in the workplace.  What some people don’t seem to understand is that part of being a successful professional is feeling comfortable socially with coworkers and customers.

And then there is a big difference in how you are accepted.  One way to be accepted is to be quiet and docile.  No one knows a thing about you that way, but they also don’t have a problem with you.  By being this way, everyone feels comfortable with you being around.  There is comfort in that, for sure.

Another way to be accepted is to become one of the guys.  For me here this means being insensitive, mimicking their sense of humor, being bawdy and inappropriate.

Both of these methods of acceptance don’t really work for me.  The easiest times I’ve had is when I’ve been at work/social functions and have gotten tipsy with people and not minded the flirtation or ridiculous sexual comments (not usually aimed at me). Instead of continuing to employ either of these strategies, over the last couple of years I have just tried to show more of who I am.  I am funny, confident, and dynamic…but am also separate from absolutely everyone.  I get along with everyone, but am just a little too this side of weird to really connect.  I am not a recluse, but I do not have friends.

But really, this whole thing got me thinking a lot about entitlement, privilege, and the hoops we jump through in life to get what we want.  My story yesterday was one with a feminist theme, but was my story special?  Is my being female, and a female of strange persuasions the same as anyone with an anxiety disorder or odd interests or whatever else makes you different from the norm? Am I being rejected solely because of my personality and should I just suck it up and deal with the fact that my personality is getting in the way of my being accepted and respected truly? A man with bad social skills probably can’t become CEO easily either.

I can’t tell anymore.  When you mention a realization about how you are treated differently because of sex, a lot of people want to immediately label you as oversensitive and just plain wrong.  It starts to feel like the fact of being female is a disease or disorder that needs to be treated with self denial.  I used to be one of those people, but as I said yesterday, once you see the way sexism colors everything, you can’t really un-see it.  My post yesterday wasn’t about hating football.  It was about not being valued as part of a group.  That is what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world.  Sure, if I loved football I would have been able to throw more comments in, but I did try (because I do like football and watch it and know enough to be part of a conversation) and when I said it, it was ignored, but when a man said it, it was brilliant.  But sure, that was my fault for not being brilliant enough.  I didn’t have the right statistic at the tip of my tongue.  I didn’t have the right nasty name to call one of the coaches.  It was my fault I wasn’t having a good time and for being wrong.

Yes, it was just a shitty lunch period, but are people so far removed from what is often going on in these settings to see the real reason it was shitty?  It wasn’t shitty because I was bored (I get bored when people talk incessantly about art too, but I don’t end up having a philosophical/cultural crisis at the end…usually).  It was shitty because I didn’t matter and I didn’t matter because I wasn’t a boy.  You can accuse me of reading too much into this because it hasn’t happened to you or because you deal with shit everyday and you don’t write blog posts about it.  I am very happy that these things don’t happen to everyone or that they don’t bother everyone.  Why would I wish that on anyone ever?  But I do see, and it does happen, and I do blog.  I am a voice that should exist.

Anyway, here’s a picture of baby badgers, because I shouldn’t take myself so seriously and shouldn’t hate the entire internet.  I mean, I found this picture on the internet, so how could it possibly be so bad?

As you may have figured out, I am a giant nerd.  I am also a songwriter.  My nerdiness certainly influences my songwriting.  This is especially evident in my choice of subjects to write about.  I write rock songs that reference the Pied Piper and the Bubonic Plague, the Russian space program, Super Mario Brothers, countless references to the Apocalypse, happiness and love from a prehistoric anthropological standpoint, and the role of feminism during the Prohibition Era.  However, though I am a scientist by trade, I have yet to really make blatant reference to scientific concepts in my songs.

A lot of this is because I don’t like to be obvious in my lyrics.  I can understand that back in the early days of rock (and the folk music that was around at the same time), it was revolutionary to say things just as they are.  Perhaps when Barry McGuire first sang “Eve of Destruction,” people were all like, “Far out! I didn’t believe that we were on the eve of destruction, but when your blood’s so mad it feels like coagulatin’ and the goverment ain’t legislatin’, how can it be denied?!?”  Sure, I poke fun at this, but there was a time when this was not an OK thing to do and cryptic lyrics went by the wayside so that teenagers could express their outrage more efficiently.

There’s still a place for that, and if it’s done well (meaning you write something because you have something original or powerful to say about the situation), I like it.  But most of the time obvious lyrics just seem boring to me and so I avoid it for my own writing.  I extend this to obvious scientific references too.  I’m not going to mention Schrodinger and his cat unless they provide the perfect picture for what I’m saying in a greater context.  In short, I’m never going to just write a song about Schrodinger’s cat.  It would be much more likely for me to say quickly in a description of a snapshot in time something like “Erwin and a lion enter the room with uncertainty”.

Perhaps I shouldn’t deconstruct my songwriting for you here.  Then you’ll know all my tricks.  Damn it!

It might have occurred to you that I am pretty critical of lyrics.  I am, in certain contexts.  Really, it’s that I am critical of lyrics written by singer songwriters.  I don’t expect brilliance when I turn on most popular radio stations.  Pop has all kinds of other stuff going for it, like catchy beats and melodies that get trapped in your head, and subjects and lyrics you don’t really have to think about.  But when I turn on NPR or WXPN and hear a whole slew of people singing about nothing and begging me to ask the question, “Why on Earth do I care what you have to say about this and why the fuck are you on the radio?!?”, I just get annoyed.

That said, I really love picking apart pop lyrics.  When driving home, I often turn on Q102 (our local Top 40 station) to see what the kids are listening to.  In addition, it’s because I honestly like some of it.  That’s where you can hear Lady Gaga, for instance, and since I will generally dance to anything that has a good beat (Peter described me the other day as “shameless” in this regard…I think it’s good to be shameless sometimes, ey?), I really can’t say “I hate pop music”.  It serves a purpose.  If the Bee Gees are fun, so is Ke$ha.  Also, there is a true talent to putting out pop hits.  I have often thought while listening to something I have deemed mindless on the radio, “Man, why aren’t I getting paid?”  Well, the answer is that I simply don’t write things that are accessible to the masses.  And I’m not saying this to say “Oh, I’m just so much smarter and more interesting than most people, that they just can’t understand my music”, like it’s some kind of personal compliment.  I mean that my stuff takes a few listens before it sinks in.  It doesn’t usually have immediate appeal…not in a way that would make me millions.  A song sounding simple doesn’t mean that anyone can write it or arrange it.  You have to understand something about mass appeal, and that is certainly an area of expertise that I lack.

Of course, very little of this has to do with the stars that are the face and supposed voice of the songs.  Most of the stars on the Top 40 station are pretty manufactured.  Peter and I were talking about the production process for people like Rihanna and it was impressive to hear him deconstruct what goes into it.  Basically, you can take anyone that you want to make a star and have them show up for a day and hack their way through some singing…and then run everything through several pieces of software and, Voila! A hit is born.  What I didn’t know is that they do this to every instrument, everything involved.  In the stadium sellout, ginormous production value world, you are paying for the computers, the hot bodies of the performers, and the set builders, lighting designers, and pyrotechnic people.

I don’t think I have a problem with that.  As I said, that all in and of itself is art and it creates a product that people want.  So what if you are less talented than someone else.  Do you put on a good show?  Well, good.  The internet makes it so there’s all kinds of music going on with various levels of production and “reality”.

As the stars tend to be pretty manufactured, they have their songs often written for them…I think.  I don’t have any really statistics about that, but I’m pretty sure most of these peoples’ jobs is to stay in shape and to be controversial and provocative. So I get really amused when I hear lyrics that I categorize as either completely brilliant or completely idiotic, depending on how you interpret them.

Take, for instance, Calvin Harris’ “I Feel So Close to You”.  This is pretty much a techno dance song kind of thing I guess, but still, they take the time to have someone say something that is supposed to be romantic…when you’re getting ground on in a dance club somewhere.  Behold the ongoing verse:

I feel so close to you right now,
It’s a force field.
I wear my heart upon my sleeve,
Like it’s a big deal.
Your love pours down on me,
Like a waterfall.
And there’s no stopping us right now.
I feel so close to you right now.

So, sure, pretty unimpressive and cliche.  But I want to direct you to the very first line in the song: I feel so close to you right now.  It’s a force field.

OK, so here’s the fucking brilliant interpretation of this concept:

The love the singer and the subject of his adoration have brings them so close that there is a repulsion between them that keeps them from truly being together.  This is a situation made more tragic by the fact that the singer is completely vulnerable about his feelings and yet, there’s a force field stopping it from mattering.  And yet, despite the invisible barrier between them, the world continues to turn and the barrier is only between them and any real connection…not between them and the rest of life.  A pair of star crossed companions moving forward in parallel path to a similar destination. Hence there is no stopping them right now.  Once they reach the destination, perhaps all this will come crashing down…but right now, the Angstrom of distance means little as long as the closeness is intact.

And…and…just disregard the line about the waterfall.  I, er, I don’t have anything brilliant to say about that.

This is kind of interesting, right?  I mean, people sing about unrequited love all the time, but this is a somewhat original way to talk about it!

What? You think I’m perhaps reading too much into this dumb song?  Ah, well no worries.  I have also developed the Make a Buck with Bad Songwriting interpretation:

By force field, the singer simply means “there’s an impressive force between us”.  Aaaaand the rest of it is just drivel.

There, are you happy now? How depressing is that?  Here I am trying to find some meaning in this life and you just have to nay say and…and…

*Cue catchy chord progression and dance beat*

“Yeah! This song is awesome!” She says as she climbs on the nearest sturdy table to “get down”.

Another example is a song that was more popular on 104.5 (our local…”alternative” station?  Is that still a thing?), Civil Twilight’s “Letters from the Sky”.  It has pretty arrangement.  There’s a string section and synthesizers and such (I think) and there’s this lyric:

One day soon, I’ll hold you like the sun holds the moon.
And we will hear those planes overhead.
And we won’t be afraid.

Brilliant interpretation: Much like the gravitational force that keeps celestial bodies safely in orbit around each other, the singer will keep his loved on safe and protected from destruction, but always at a great distance.  If they were to allow themselves to touch, it would mean that everything around them would crash and burn and everything that they know would be gone.  It would be an end of everything, resulting in the quiet before a new beginning.  Vigilant, the singer and the object of his love sit distanced apart watching the onslaught of man made destroyers.  They do not fear them because their distance holds the key to actual safety and the reality of what would happen if they were to break this distance is far more terrifying than anything that a modern military has.

Shaun also pointed out that this could be interpreted as a nod to polyamory, because you really have to involve the Earth in this, making one big celestial triad.  The relationship between the sun and moon is not exactly direct.  The moon is held in orbit around the Earth due to Earth’s gravitational force, and the sun holds them both in orbit for the same reason.  So, much like how we are not islands and our relationships affect each other, the influence of the various celestial bodies on each other can’t be denied, nor is it preferred for any of them not to be involved.

I think that’s what he was talking about.  I admit that I was on my second mojito by the time we were talking about this at dinner and I also had a mental breakdown at work that day (which resulted in a lot of me stomping around and laughing maniacally), so my comprehension should be held in question.  All I remember is saying, “Ah! YES!  That’s ALSO brilliant!”

And then Wes said, “You know, neither of those interpretations is particularly brilliant.”

To which I said something like, “BE THAT AS IT MAY! It is more brilliant than…”

This, more likely,  interpretation: The singer will hold onto the object of his love really tight and no one has to be scared when there’s an unwavering hug happening. Or something.

I am sure as I listen to more popular music I will find more instances of using science as metaphors and similes in dumb songs and will probably talk about them, because that’s fun for me.  Do you have examples of your own?