Recently I was in a car with a friend, singing along with “Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin, doing my most soulful “now I’m no longer doubtful of what I’m living for/ ’cause if I make you happy I don’t need to do more.” Just before I launched into my soaring “you make me feel,” I stopped, turned incredulously to my friend and asked: “Aretha Franklin? If she makes her man happy she doesn’t need to do more?”
My parents were hippies (southern, Jewish hippies). They married young, did the 1970s married thing. I was raised in a happy family by two intelligent, busy people. They still show my brother and me silly pictures of their hippie days, all the hair and excess fabric. We laugh and eat edamame before Mom goes to yoga.
In all this hippiedom, there wasn’t much talk of feminism, but there was plenty of subtle feminist activity, and I was lightly conditioned to never accept less because I’m a girl. But now, many years later and 737 miles away (according to my freshman year door sign), here I am naturally singing along with Aretha about a man digging her soul out of the lost and found.
So I called Vickie Cook, a Take Back the Night co-chairwoman and former director of emPower (“though you could also quote me as resident feminist goddess”). I was confused about “Natural Woman” because it got me thinking about less obvious anti-women’s lib things that slip into our lives, swinging more weight around for women of our generation than the old image of the 1950s housewife or the secretary who is a toy.
Basically, Vickie said, it isn’t antifeminist or weak to want some companionship. But “you have to draw a line and ask, ‘Why do I want this?’ … It’s just like everything else, every other decision you make — am I going to do this because someone expects me to, because I don’t know what to do without it, or am I doing it for myself?”
Women can stand on our own, but we don’t have to. We should never have to go all “Jerry Maguire.” We don’t have to say “you complete me.” We are complete.
And as for how disturbed I was by the fact that I’ve been blindly singing “Natural Woman” since I could speak without realizing what I was saying?
“Keep an eye out” for the things that slip into pop culture, Vickie said, recalling “Ally McBeal” — praised for being a show about female lawyers. Sexy, half-naked female lawyers.
I’m not going to stop listening to Aretha. I don’t think I have to and neither does Vickie. And girls: Keep your boyfriends. If you ever find yourself in an elevator with Tom Cruise, go right ahead and profess your undying love — just don’t underestimate yourself without him.
Look out on the morning rain and feel as uninspired as Aretha at her worst, but don’t feel that way because you think there’s something wrong with you because you don’t have a significant other.
A relationship can make you “feel so alive,” but don’t let a lack thereof keep you from feeling that way on your own. Oh, and Aretha sings “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” too.
Don’t forget to apply that to yourself.
