Most importantly, I think that this song's aim is similar to a poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Heart of a Woman":
THE HEART of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
The heart of a woman falls back with the night, 5
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
This song to me has always been about a mother and daughter confiding in one another. The daughter is preparing to face the world, and the mother is telling her about the sorrow and anger there is in being a woman. This song is about women facing a misogynistic world. The daughter says"leave the light on" remind me of who I am, of my personal sovereignty as I enter the world, that I was someone. My name is going to be changed, I will lose so much of who I am, but remind me. The mother is telling her daughter to be strong, to remember that woman once meant something.
I think that later in the song, the mother addresses society as a whole: "we have told you all of our secrets." I think of this song as representing a struggle between femininity and masculinity, like they are two countries in a war, and femininity has been conquered. Women have been poisoned against the moon (often standing in opposition to the sun as a symbol of femininity) and forced to see their own womanhood as being shameful, weak, and inferior. Men have covered women's faces with veils, changed their names, and poisoned them against their own femininity. Women have been forced to abandon their dreams and embrace those of male society. I see all of this as being told by a mother who has experienced it, and perhaps gained back a bit of herself, to her daughter who is just embarking on this journey, this struggle between masculinity and femininity.
I think this song is also about female "double-consciousness." The way women think of themselves one way (ex. intelligent, strong, resilient, independent) and (masculine) society thinks of them another way (ignorant, naive, weak, dependent). And as women, we have to reconcile ourselves with those two points of view and see our femininity either as a flaw, or as a strength. WE have our own dreams, our own minds, but will we allow our secrets to be stolen, our names changed, our faces veiled? Will femininity forever be viewed as the weaker side of the equation of humanity, or could it ever be acknowledged as equally unique and beautiful and strong as masculinity?
Most importantly, I think that this song's aim is similar to a poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Heart of a Woman":
THE HEART of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on, Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
The heart of a woman falls back with the night, 5 And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
This song to me has always been about a mother and daughter confiding in one another. The daughter is preparing to face the world, and the mother is telling her about the sorrow and anger there is in being a woman. This song is about women facing a misogynistic world. The daughter says"leave the light on" remind me of who I am, of my personal sovereignty as I enter the world, that I was someone. My name is going to be changed, I will lose so much of who I am, but remind me. The mother is telling her daughter to be strong, to remember that woman once meant something.
I think that later in the song, the mother addresses society as a whole: "we have told you all of our secrets." I think of this song as representing a struggle between femininity and masculinity, like they are two countries in a war, and femininity has been conquered. Women have been poisoned against the moon (often standing in opposition to the sun as a symbol of femininity) and forced to see their own womanhood as being shameful, weak, and inferior. Men have covered women's faces with veils, changed their names, and poisoned them against their own femininity. Women have been forced to abandon their dreams and embrace those of male society. I see all of this as being told by a mother who has experienced it, and perhaps gained back a bit of herself, to her daughter who is just embarking on this journey, this struggle between masculinity and femininity.
I think this song is also about female "double-consciousness." The way women think of themselves one way (ex. intelligent, strong, resilient, independent) and (masculine) society thinks of them another way (ignorant, naive, weak, dependent). And as women, we have to reconcile ourselves with those two points of view and see our femininity either as a flaw, or as a strength. WE have our own dreams, our own minds, but will we allow our secrets to be stolen, our names changed, our faces veiled? Will femininity forever be viewed as the weaker side of the equation of humanity, or could it ever be acknowledged as equally unique and beautiful and strong as masculinity?