That's the way the girls are from Texas.

Sunday, cigarette #3
Cup-a-Joe, 11:45am
MUSIC: "Born a Woman," Sandy Posey

Makes no difference if you're rich or poor or if you're smart or dumb,
A woman's place in this old world is under some man's thumb,
And if you're born a woman, you're born to be hurt,
You're born to be stepped on, lied to, cheated on, and treated like dirt.
Well, I was born a woman, I didn't have no say,
And when my man finally comes home, he makes me glad it happened that way,
Because to be his woman no price is too great to pay.
Yes, I was born a woman, and I'm glad it happened that way.

My failure to be a feminist is well-documented, but I object to Steve Klinge's article on bee-hived countrypolitan singer Sandy Posey (not up online, but why haven't you just bought the Oxford American music issue already?):

There's nothing wrong with bubblegum — some would argue that all pop music is bubblegum—but Posey's songs can't be dismissed as typical bubblegummy superficial pleasure. They depict a real world that's full of compromise and pain, a world that exists in the past and the present, where women compromise themselves for men. That's Posey's argument.

"There's a lot of women that will do that. They live that way. And more so back then than today. Women are more knowledgeable and getting more help than they did back then. But you know, even today, it's a man's world, and, you know, God created man to be the leader of the home. We have a tendency to swing too far to the left or the right, and we're still looking for a balance. The Bible says that God hates a false balance, and where men and women are concerned and even black and white, we're still looking for that balance in the middle somewheere, to feel better."

Sandy Posey's songs depict a very imperfect world, although they don't do much to challence its injustices and inequities. That's why they present a challenge themselves. Their nearly masochistic conservatism runs contrary to present-day expectations. These complexities, however, can offer their own rewards for a listener. I'm drawn to these songs for their strangeness, for their alien qualities, but ultimately because Posey's seductive vocal performances transcend the subject matter — she sings the hell out of these songs, which almost renders the sociological implications moot. Almost.

Klinge isn't necessarily wrong to invoke Christianity as an explanation for Posey's "nearly masochistic conservatism" (a phrase I had not expected to read in a music review), but he isn't entirely right, either. Two exhibits for the defense — first, "God May Forgive You (But I Won't)" by Norma Jean:

God may forgive you, but I won't.
Yes, Jesus loves you, but I don't.
They don't have to live with you. Well, neither do I.
You say that you're born again, well, so am I.
God may forgive you, but I won't, I won't even try.

And "Forgiveness" by the Lonesome Sisters:

If you're looking for someone who'll wait home every night, someone who understands that you're trying to do right,
Someone who has compassion for the things that you do, well, I know just the someone that you can turn to.
Explain it all to Him and maybe He will take you in, and you can tell Him about the sorry cheatin' fool that you've been.
If you want a love that divine, you need the heavenly kind. You want forgiveness, tell it to Jesus. That's His job, not mine.

The Bible shoots pretty straight on the question of male headship, and there's a certain indignity and humiliation in accepting its picture of "a woman's place" (not that humiliation is necessarily a bad thing), but Klinge can't get away with saying that Christian anti-feminism makes a woman weak. As far as I can tell, Learning to Put Up With Stuff You Don't Like is called "growing up" when men do it and, when it doesn't come from a place of abject resignation, it tends to make you stronger.

P.S. One cutesy sentence near the beginning of Klinge's review absolves him of all his misunderstandings: "Listening with post-feminist ears four decades later to these aggressively pre-feminist (anti-feminist? non-feminist?) vignettes, this male listener, at least, faces plenty of cognitive dissonance." Aww.