Even so, I found myself thinking about them this morning and was unable to stop.
Probably around twelve years ago, I had the opportunity to see Sinead O'Connor perform live during a Lilith Fair. She wasn't the artist I was going to see, but she was the artist that left me with the most lasting impression. Up until that point, I hadn't really given her much thought. Sure, "Nothing Compares 2 U" was one of the most powerful ballads ever performed by a woman, but it essentially made her a "one hit wonder" in the States and little more. I was a freshman in college when she appeared on Saturday Night Live, and had the audacity to tear a picture of the Pope in half during her performance. I was caught up in a lot of my own problems at the time, and admittedly, I really didn't understand her message, and paid it little mind. That said, when she, in all of her diminutive stature belted out the lyrics of "Fire On Babylon" on the stage at Lilith Fair, everything clicked into place for me--just like a key in a lock.
I really can't say anything about how Miley Cyrus has moved me, because I really don't know how she has managed to "move" anyone--not even an infant after a bottle of formula.
But the reason I couldn't stop thinking of this "tiff" between these two women has nothing to do with what I think of their personal talents, or lack thereof, it's about the tug-of-war that plays out among women in our society as a whole.
Sinead O'Connor ripped a photo of Pope John Paul II in half on Saturday Night Live as a protest against the prevalence of abuse within the Catholic Church. She did this about a decade before victims began to come forward in droves, and the magnitude of the issue was no longer a secret the Church could keep.
I think that's important. And nothing against PJPII personally, but I think it was the right thing for someone to do.
When I think of Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor, I think not just of two different women, but two different types of women. They come from two very different sources of power, and as a woman, I find myself thinking of what those sources of power mean.
In 2002, my husband and I took a trip to Ireland and found ourselves staying at a castle where "Tristan and Isolde" was being filmed. It was very exciting for us. I knew nothing of the story, and found myself wanting to learn more as I anxiously awaited the release of the film here in the States. I found myself reading a series of books by Rosalind Miles, and aside from the superficial story of the tragic romance, I found myself caught up in her underlying theme of women as a source of spiritual and political power.
As a woman who had often felt pretty powerless, the idea of the feminine as the seat of power in society was more than a little intriguing and attractive to me. I wanted to know more. A friend of mine was more well acquainted with these ideals and recommended "Women Who Run With the Wolves" by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, which explores women as the seat of power in multiple archetypal settings within various cultures and societies.
Long adrift in the world of spirituality, I felt I'd found a little corner of home. I found myself interested in learning more about Celtic mysticism and paganism, not because I shunned Christianity or patriarchal religions at the time, but because these other paths offered a warm embrace to a woman who needed to take back power she had never had.
Several years ago, another friend recommended the book "The Goddess vs. the Alphabet: The Conflict Between the Word and the Image," by Leonard Shlain. At the time, I read it because my friend was a published author and I wanted to seem smart and like I could keep up with the conversation. I wasn't that smart, and that conversation ended long ago, but Shlain's message still haunts me, and it was his message that kept me thinking about Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor this morning.
In this work, Shlain also examines the history of women as the seat of power. As the source of life and the promise of the human species' continued existence, women were traditionally, and naturally in positions of power over men. With the introduction and predominance of written language, there was an essentially tectonic shift between the roles of women and men in Western society. The masculine embraced the word, and the feminine became the foul, unwashed and unclean. The feminine required the masculine to guide and dominate. And dominate they did.
As a lover of the written word and language, this concept was a startling and heartbreaking revelation to me. But when I looked around me in my personal life and the wider world, my heartbreak did not make the concept any less valid. Sometimes the truth hurts.
And that is why I was thinking of Miley and Sinead this morning.
In the millenia that have passed since the introduction of written language, and since the shift of power, women in most cultures that have embraced language have become dominated by men. Our marriages, our bodies, our childbearing, our livelihoods, and in many cases our very existences have become primarily dependent upon the whims of men.
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| We need to take more than a sideways glance out the gods we create. |
I think that's why I always found myself searching for a spiritual home, but could never feel secure in one that was so heavily dominated by the masculine. I'd never been able to identify a sense of love or safety in a father's hand, whether in corporeal form or spiritual. And so many years after the fact, that's why Sinead O'Connor tearing that photo of the Pope is so important to me, and why Miley Cyrus' photo should be torn right along side it. She is the very representation of the "father."
You see, at close to the same age as Miley Cyrus, Sinead O'Connor shaved her head too, not to shock, but to take away the power of men. She shaved her head to thwart men from using her as a sexual object for financial or exploitative gain. She wore clothes. She sold herself, not on the merits of her nearly naked body, but on the merits of her powerful voice. And when she told the truth, she was shunned and outcast for it.
Miley Cyrus represents, for me, the lie. She represents the lie that women can only take back their feminine power by thrusting their half naked bodies to the world. She represents the lie that you can't be understated, intelligent and talented if you want to be successful. Sadly, more times that not, the Cyrus lie wins--but only for a time. I say only for a time, because there are a string of shriveled up, used up, half naked women along side the road of power and success that thought the only way to get where they wanted to go was to be quirky, half-witted and "likable" (i.e. non-threatening, non-thinking). It has, at times, been a hard lesson for me to learn, but there are many ways to define success. For me, it has become defined not by position, not by financial gain or fortune, but by being able to look at myself in the mirror and not feel the need to blacken the eyes of the person staring back. All because I wasn't willing to be something other than who I really am for all of those other lies. That has value to me.
Sadly, as women, many of us are fine with all that the "Cyrus lie" perpetuates, as long as we don't perceive ourselves to be challenged or harmed by it ourselves. But what we fail to realize is that we are all harmed by it. Many of us see the quiet, deep thinkers among our peers as the enemy, choosing instead to keep falling into the same power trap. We fail to support each other during difficult times, because it's easier than meeting real challenges and burrowing deep inside our own spirits. We judge each other for falling down in a society that has quite frankly pushed us down to prevent us from tearing pictures of the Pope.
When those of us who strive to reclaim ourselves and our place, make the mistake of reaching out to those of us in plastic underwear and with little sense of self, we are ridiculed and maligned.
The writing may not be clear on the wall for many of us. The power of the plastic pants may be the shiny thing of a society that believes it's easier to keep women low if they are held up as the dirty and used shells of a drunken weekend. But as a woman who prefers the company of wolves, I know that in 20 years, I will remember the banshee wail of "Fire on Babylon" long after plastic pants girl is done "just being Miley," whomever that actually is.
Fire On Babylon--Sinead O'Connor
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