Everybody wants you

Everybody wants your love

I'd just like to make you mine all mine

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na,

Baby give it up

Give it up, Baby give it up

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na,

Baby give it up

Give it up, Baby give it up

Everybody sees you

Everybody looks and stares

I'd just like to make you mine all mine

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na,

Baby give it up

Give it up, Baby give it up

Lyrics to a popular song by KC and the Sunshine Band.  Most of us know it. Most of us have bopped to it in our lives. Have any of us really listened to the lyrics?

Upon hearing this song on Radio Two the other day, I thought "Here we go- another piece of 80's electronic music - drivel. Oh well, might as well listen to the lyrics and see if there is any inspiration there".

There wasn't.

What I did find was someone who wanted to own a woman, who only saw her as a sexual object, who was trying to convince her to have sex with him. Am I reading too much into it? I don't think so - the lyrics are right there, saying just that.

The woman in this piece is an object. Everyone wants to own her for her physical beauty. Everyone wants to have sex with her. But where is the woman herself in this piece? Surely she is more than what is offered between her thighs.  People are only seeing the surface. And then responding to that surface, with sexual overtures.  How would you feel if you were the woman in this song? Everyone seeing you, everyone looking and staring, everyone wanting to "make you theirs".

Sounds a bit predatory, doesn't it?

People cannot own people in the Western world. But this chap still wants to make her his.  I loathe this terminology. When I married my husband, I did not become his. I was not given away at my wedding. I am not chattel.  Neither does my husband belong to me - he is his own person. Yes, we have an exclusive relationship with each other based on our love for each other. That is our choice.

This song, under its catchy, sunny melodies is full of the kind of message that seeps into our culture day after day, year after year, decade after decade, century after century.  It makes me uneasy. It makes me angry. It makes me want to scream in frustration sometimes. It makes me sad that even after all the work done by men and women the world over for equality songs like this still find a way through. 

But it's just a pop song, right?  That sort of thinking is, in my opinion, what allows our culture to slip bit by bit into the dark ages of patriarchal rule and misogyny.  I'm sure there are some people out there who just think I'm being an emotional woman with a chip on her shoulder. What they don't see is the very real threat to me and to women everywhere. 

Women don't want to be pressurised for sex. Women don't want to constantly be asked to "give it up".  A lot of women hate being called "baby" as well, as I'm sure do a lot of men, finding it demeaning.  Women don't want everyone to stare at them and see them just as a sexual object.

That is why this song bothers me. There is legion of songs out there that have the same message. That frightens me to no end. All I know is; I will not give it up.