On the every-woman anthems of the 90s

I was born in Columbus, Ohio, shortly after Sony introduced the Walkman.

Prior to this invention, there were only portable radios that offered limited broadcasts. The Walkman was a gift that extended beyond entertainment value alone. It enabled us, I’d discover later, to find a new way to disappear, to be introspective in the world, to augment emotion, and to master the senses—all while being accompanied by a soundtrack to make our lives feel more cinematic, our roles feel justified.

I wouldn’t own my own Walkman until I was thirteen, but the day I first listened to Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman” while walking to the mailbox under the predatory gaze of a man creeping close in an old Cadillac, I knew my life would never be the same. I couldn’t imagine an existence in which I could not escape into such an anthem. It’s all in me, Whitney said. What’s all in me?  

I didn’t know much about the every woman then, but I knew she had a soundtrack. She could imagine an existence in which a walk down Mount Pleasant Avenue would dim if she was left to ingest the raw and gravel-like sound of that man’s voice calling to her before easing away, or the bottle being thrown from a car or the gritty bustle of High Street nearby. The Walkman was there, too, when discord peaked. Or, worse, at the moments of soul-bending silence that would come on Saturday afternoons before overdue confrontations arrived like slow-moving cars.

At fourteen, I’d been told my mother had been the reason my parents divorced. She had to move, while my father kept the house. As she struggled for years to find suitable pay in exchange for hard work, my mother would be the one who seemed in the wrong because she did not fit a mold. No woman in my family did. It would be two more years before I’d purchase Gwen Stefani’s “I’m Just a Girl,” and scream it out as I got dressed in the mornings.

When I was growing up, I’d constructed an image of the ideal woman that went something like this: beautiful, extroverted, a community builder, selfless, contagious laugh, never complains, and always knows the proper etiquette. Did I mention beautiful? She was ambitious but never overstepped or took up too much space or said uncomfortable truths. According to the legends of my family, none of these attributes lived in my genetic current. I was destined to be selfish and ignored, aloof, and probably one among many to navigate the seas of the mentally ill.

My Walkman became more magical with each tape, and while most songs were more about diminishing women than building them up, I clung to those that suggested something new. Songs by Alanis Morrissette, Destiny’s Child and Eve enabled me to change the very rhythm of my life—a timeline that could now be sped or slowed, energized or romanticized, depending on what I needed to augment in my life. My collection of possibilities grew with the number of beats. Most deliciously, I could drown out the perils of being a teenager and fully dream, falling deep into soundtracks that offered more hope than my immediate worlds seemed to. The blanket of predictability would change with the right rhythm.

I used music to get through and, sometimes, to justify bad behaviors. To imagine being a woman treated with respect, not being called too much or too little of something, was impossible growing up if I listened to the collective mythology. Even Whitney, who introduced me to the idea of the every woman, wasn’t immune.

My mother was the reason for my sister’s rebellion, or so the family myth went. My grandmother was the root of my panic. Her mother was the reason for her mental illness. Women in my family were archetypes of destruction, and their fleeting offerings ceased to exist beyond reproduction. But in songs, I heard collective strength—the strength I saw in the women I knew.

Perhaps one day we will easily be able to deconstruct what’s ideal. If we find the right soundtrack, we’ll understand that acceptance is the anthem we all need. Around the year my parents got divorced, I found the ability to lower the volume in a world full of myths. And while I wouldn’t avoid them completely, over the years I would slowly come to realize that much of what I’d been told was about as credible as what a girl might’ve heard if she took off her headphones and acknowledged the misguided advances of a man in a slow-moving car.

Meditation: Connecting to Truth

Next week, I’ll be posting “On Joy”