MGUK: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN (AND NOT BE KILLED FOR IT)
This article was written for Music Geeks UK Issue 2. Read the full issue here.
LOUD WOMEN’s Album Cover for the Song “Reclaim These Streets”
I come home, in the mornin’ light
My mother says, "When you gonna live your life right?"
Oh momma dear, we're not the fortunate ones
And girls, they wanna have fun
The first few lines of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” are as seemingly popular today as they were back in 1983. But perhaps in today’s context, when it comes to women having fun, particularly fun that has them walking the streets in the early hours of the morning, the song can have a whole new poignance.
After the tragic kidnapping and murder of Sarah Everard by a male police officer in March of this year, the movement #ReclaimTheseStreets has been protesting gender-based violence and its victim-blaming mindset. The organization states on their official website, “Streets should be safe for women regardless of what we wear, where we walk, or what time of day or night it is. It’s wrong that the response to violence against women requires women to behave differently.”
Estimates published by WHO indicate that about 30% of women worldwide have been subjected to sexual violence in their lifetime. It can happen anywhere and anytime, and in light of this, one can recall Lauper’s iconic lyrics. It is wrong to assume that there is some way we can “live our lives right” in order to protect ourselves, because ultimately as women, “we’re not the fortunate ones.” We just “wanna have fun” and not be murdered before we get home.
Of course, Lauper’s song has always been associated with the female fight for equality. Back in the 1980s, the first version of the song was originally sung from a man’s perspective, and detailed the sexual coercion of women. Lauper reworked the lyrics to focus on women’s sexual freedom instead, commenting in The Atlantic in 2014 that her move, “was very blatantly feminist.” She was, “raised with musicians that changed the world,” and wanted to do the same for future musicians. Her ideology does not appear to have changed, as she has stood alongside artists like Kesha in the wake of the creative industry’s #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. Because it seems that women are just as unsafe in the arts as they are on the streets.
But in spite of that, the arts, such as music, can clearly be used as a tool to both lament and protest the issues that women face. Lauper’s final verse states outright defiance towards men’s attempted oppression of women:
Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest o' the world
I wanna be the one to walk in the sun
Oh girls, they wanna have fun
And one can see this reflected in the current protest songs that the #ReclaimTheseStreets movement has birthed, such as the LOUD WOMEN Collective’s song, aptly named “Reclaim These Streets.” Performed by 64 female and non-binary musicians and singers, the lyrics cry out:
Till every woman's safe to live her truth
Till every woman's safe to walk on every street
Ooo-aah
Reclaim these streets!
While obviously taking on a blunter depiction of the female street experience, and being much more of the punk genre, links can still be made to Lauper’s pop-y lyrics. Both songs exude the need for freedom; freedom for women to safely live however they want, and freedom from male oppression. All of this is characterized in both songs by the image of walking down the street. The new song is also currently popular among listeners, reaching number 3 in the iTunes Alternative Music chart through word of mouth and social media. The writer of “Reclaim These Streets,” Cassie Fox, gave a comment on the power that music has:
“In the face of male violence against women […] music has the power to cut through media agendas, and speak directly to the people. We learn about politics in lots of different ways, but when we’re feeling angry and oppressed, we’re not necessarily going to reach for a book by Wollstonecraft or de Beauvoir - instead we might turn up a feminist punk song.”
Cyndi Lauper has been an icon for many female artists, and with newer groups like LOUD WOMEN, music will hopefully always be there to provide support to feminist fights. Both songs are great choices for those wishing to get involved with the cause, and hopefully one day, women can listen to them while walking down the street, earphones in, without any fear of danger.
“Reclaim These Streets” by the LOUD WOMEN Collective has been released, with all proceeds going to Women’s Aid. Anyone wanting to support the song can do so by either buying the song from Bandcamp or donating directly to the charity at: www.loudwomen.org/reclaimthesestreets/