It's a song about a woman that's been cheated on by a boyfriend. Nothing new there. Women-revenge songs have been around as long as there's been women and songs. Before He Cheats chorus goes on to say this:
And he don't know...
That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little suped up 4 wheel drive,
Carved my name into his leather seats...
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...
Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.
The first time I head the song, I thought, "Interesting. Domestic violence towards men is still acceptable." When I heard it again, I thought, "Oh, I forgot. Only men cheat." This morning when I heard it, the song reminded me of just how hard women are.
Underwood
Women are harder than men. I learned that a long time ago. It's the reason that most songs sung by women don't talk about never living or loving again. Men sing most of those songs. Women sing about being strong, getting over it, living a good life, getting revenge.That isn't to say women are wrong, only that they are strong. Men pine for lost loves, even the ones they didn't really want. Women do not. It is a rare woman that tells a friend to get back together with a boyfriend. Women are masters of making a decision about a relationship, and sticking to it. After a break-up, a few tears, a Cosmopolitan, and a dry hump with a man ten years their junior, they will usually get back on track. Men sit around and bore their buddies with endless questions like, "Why?"
Our society hasn't changed much in its false belief that women are fragile, innocent flowers. Though women are responsible for half the child abuse that goes on in our homes, it's a man's face that pops to mind when the term "child abuse" is uttered. The fact that most inappropriate teacher-student sexual relationships that end in criminal charges involve a female teacher and a male student doesn't makes the waves it would if it was a man and female student doing the extracurricular activities.
Women have cut themselves a pretty good piece of cake over the past 30 years. We are told that they are babes in the woods, victims of longstanding prejudice, and far less apt to be mean, vengeful, or more hurtful than men.
It's a crock, of course. Jeremiah Johnson had a very good line. When Jeremiah asks an old man if he every gets lonesome living up in the mountains, the old man replies, "I've found that a woman's breast is the hardest rock I've ever laid my head upon."
There's a lot of truth to that. Women are hard. Think about a typical relationship: the woman is to be taken care of, cared for, nurtured. She is the fairer sex, and people compliment her with words like, "caring, loving, compassionate." But when a man is a half-hour late at the bar, that woman is suddenly a beast. Women tell him that his wife will kick his ass. If the man looks at another woman's breats, it's nothing to say that the man's wife will "kill him," and nobody would blink if she cracked him one. If a woman slaps a man, it's just a tiff. If a man slaps a woman, it's assault. When lowly, pathetic men are asked what keeps a relationship together, the lowly man replies, "The words, 'yes, dear,'" and everyone cracks up, women most of all. Imagine a woman saying, "The words, 'yes, dear.'" She would be pitied and called a fool. She would be told to leave that domineering man of hers, because he is a chauvanist pig.
Which brings me back to Carrie Underwood's song. I don't have a problem with it, because it is a very honest statement of what women are capable of, both in life and music. Women can be extremely spiteful and mean, yet it can be found humorous and acceptable. Lorena Bobbitt can cut off a penis and get away scot free, while a man cutting off a breast would rightly be thrown in prison for years. One of Lorena's problems with John, beyond her "childhood post traumatic stress," was that John would "have orgasm and he doesn't wait for me to have orgasm." Well. Imagine a man using "my wife doesn't wait for me to come" as an excuse for mutilating her genitals. Do you think he'd be set free, as Lorena was? Or would he rot in prison?
A quick search of the net finds dozens of women leaving comments about Underwood's revenge song, telling men to lighten up, or saying that Carrie's got great ideas on how to get even with cheating men. Here's a few comments picked at random from lyricsandsongs.com:
omg! carrie i love that song i sing it every day in class and then my friend starts singing it and i love it...if i didnt mention it or anything..hahah! - Mary
It's somthing i would do to my boyfriend if he were to cheat on me....!!! - Molly
hey! everyone says that this is something that I would do to my x or who ever had the nerve to cheat on me! - Hillary
omg i love this song mke and my sis sing it all the time and we say thats what's gonna happen to our bf's if they ever cheat on us - Alicia
When i first seen the video i didnt even know it was Carrie! I love this song so Kris if you ever cheat on me then expect this to happen lol! (no really i will!!!) - Rebecca
This song rocks. Its one i love to crank up in my car and just sing along to. I that the song has so much balls to it. Its gritty and raw and any male that cheats deserves what carrie sings about. - Amy
me and my friend were going to do this to a guy's car but her parents told her she wasn't allowed to use baseball bats after she socked him... so we're going to use golf clubs... - Erin
Admittedly, the women or teens that wrote these comments are total morons that cannot spell. But what else is new in the internet age? In any event, I could not find one comment from a woman that disagreed with the song's message. All of the women agree that violence (or "domestic terror" as the women's libbers call it) is an acceptable answer to a cheating man, and in one case, the girl's parents told her not to use a baseball bat so they're going with a 9 iron.
There's a few conclusions we can draw from this. One is, without a doubt, that we have been indoctrinated into the belief that only men can be vicious and vindictive, while women are always the victims. Nonsense. Another conclusion is that women are walking around with the age-old lie that men are the only people in a relationship that cheat.
This is one of the bigger absurdities that I've been shaking my head over in the past few years. When I was growing up, I always heard about marriages breaking up because the man was running around. When I was in University, I heard all kinds of cheating men stories, and how the woman was pissed and wanted to kill him, etc. But when I entered the big, bad world of so-called adults, that's when the blinders came off. Because women cheat as much as men do, if not more, and they get away with the innocent babe in the woods crap for no reason at all.
Now, to provide full disclosure, I don't know if I've ever been cheated on. I don't think I have, but I don't know it for a fact. I only say this to close the mouths of women that will say, "He's bitter." I'm not, but that doesn't mean I'll let women get away with playing the little ol' me tripe.
I have seen women cheat first hand, and I've heard them talk about it. And I will guarantee you that if any man trashed their dopey SUV, the chick would be the first one screaming for a restraining order and asking that the man be put away for life. Still, I would like to think that if a guy did trash a lady's car, he wouldn't pull an Underwood and be so stupid as to carve his own name in the driver's seat.
My message is not so much that people shouldn't throw rocks, but if you're going to, don't do it in a glass house. Or car.
Photo: Fanscape
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