The Problem with ‘lets me’.

Posted by: youreonlive on: March 14, 2014

• In: Celebrity | Life | relationships
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The pop rock singer, Shakira, was in an interview a couple of weeks ago. It was focused on her new album and its recently released single, Can’t Remember to Forget You. The music video for the song was very risque. It featured Shakira and pop singer Rihanna in sexy attire, dancing around a house and lounging by a pool and occasionally cuddling and caressing each other along with other suggestively intimate actions.

When asked about the girl on girl suggested activity in the video Shakira responded that frankly she had no choice but to cast a female co star for the video because her boyfriend, and father of their first and only child, won’t let her do videos with male costars anymore. She cited his reasons as being that he was very protective of her but that she likes that he is jealous enough to only allow a woman of Rihanna’s caliber of attractiveness to graze her thigh.

“He’s very territorial, and since he no longer lets me do videos with men, well, I have to do them with women,” Shakira said.

She continued, “It’s more than implied in our relationship that I can’t do videos like I used to. It’s out of the question – which I like, by the way.”

“I like that he protects his turf and he values me, in a way that the only person he would ever let graze my thigh would be Rihanna,” Shakira added.

Rothman, M. (2014, March 7). Shakira says boyfriend’ no longer lets me do videos with men’. abcgo.news.com. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://abcnews.go.com.

 

 

Now, if we still lived in a time when a girl on girl music video would have been problematic to film because of homosexual suggestive content, let alone released to the public on national broadcasting, would that have meant that you would have just been stuck doing videos with non human objects like house plants and an embellished guitar or CGI’ed horses a la your Wherever, Whenever video?

I take great issue with not only what she said but the meanings behind what she said as well.

1. Accreditation of past career highlights.

What I hear you  saying is that the reason that your prior videos with male costars even exist is because either: a) you had low self esteem which made it difficult for you to ‘respect’ your past relationships or b) you really wanted to ‘respect’ yourself but, unfortunately, you didn’t have a Partner to force you to do so. Either way you are essentially saying that the difference between your old videos and your newest video is that now you have someone to love.

So, a female artist in a relationship automatically changes parts of her craft for love’s sake unlike the rest of the world’s single women in music and entertainment who apparently ONLY do videos with male co stars because their male Partner doesn’t love, or respect them, or isn’t protective of them enough. following that logic, every husband and boyfriend who is currently in a relationship with a woman who has been in a career that sometimes requires working alongside the opposite sex, just don’t care about their female partner like Gerard does about you. You special snowflake, you.

2. Objectification of sexual orientation.

The fact that Shakira’s Partner sees a risque lesbian-ish scenario as perfectly fine in comparison to a heterosexual scenario tells me that a) he doesn’t see two women together in a sexual manner as threatening because b) he does not see lesbians as people but as sexual walking fantasies meant for his objectification and enjoyment. I got news for you pal. It wouldn’t be the first time a ‘straight’ woman came to terms with her orientation and left her male Partner of x-amount of years and father of x many children to move on with a woman.

3. Self esteem

It is a frightening idea, to me, that in 2014, successful, smart, beautiful, sexy, and very famous women, STILL do not feel that they can dictate their own choices so long as they are in a relationship with a man. As single women, oh, sure, “they run the world”, but put a ring on that finger or a man on that arm, and the entirety of who they are as a person, as an individual personality, as a set of experiences and thoughts, it all becomes second to him, all of him: his career, his success, his financial status, his morals, his standards, his choices.

Maybe Gerard was thinking along the lines of ‘What a beautiful but defenseless, sexy, women. Let me save her from this life of sexual objectification with male co stars and suggestively promiscuous music videos. She is clearly only doing those because no one loves her enough to protect her; a cry for help, if you will. Her visual depiction of her music from the perspective of an artist had nothing to do with it.’ What a douche bag.

It is frustrating to still see so many women, and men, continue to live with this idea that a relationship is set us as podium in which the male is always first and the female is always second (it seems that she can be first only amongst other women at her own designated ‘female’s only’ podium). It is insane how many couples refuse to be in relationships in which both Partners are equal. I fail to see the good in being a part of a relationship in which all that you are and will always be is second to the person you are with, automatically.

I’m not talking about a gradual shift in power. I am specifically talking about the group of heterosexual relationships in which the woman is made second to the male in the relationship, or subordinate, or submissive, number 2, the co pilot, whatever you want to call it, ONLY because she is now in a relationship.

I know that things are changing on that front. I am very glad that they are, too. I can’t imagine another era of woman continuing to believe that their gender will always and must always be second to their male counterparts just because they have a vagina and their Partner has a penis. I understand that things will not be equal for a bit more time. In the mean time we must all do our part to push woman forward and teach them that all the things in Life that they earn for themselves through hard work and perseverance don’t have to be in a position to fall into second place for another person simply because that person’s clitoris happened to grow out long and mushroomed.