Raise Your Glass

“So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways” (Pink).

Let’s be honest.  Most little girls, teenagers, and women don’t learn how to be feminists from reading scholarship.  They learn from each other, from mass media (TV, movies, magazines, websites, radio, plays, etc), from their parents and family, and from social experience.  And while some girls and women do seek feminist scholarship to guide their experience, I venture that most don’t – academic scholarship is usually written in intimidating jargon and unless published as a book, is inaccessible to elementary, middle and high school girls.  


Of course, there are exceptions, especially girls who create their own zines and websites (think LiveJournal), or write for feminist sites like Bitch Media (established 1996) and Jezebel.com (established 2007).  But let me just say, neither of these existed when I was in middle school and high school (I graduated in 1999 – but I didn’t find out about Bitch until college*).  Instead, like I said above, girls and women learn from their social experiences, which for better or worse are highly shaped and influenced by social media.


*I bought my sister a year long subscription + a journal for her Christmas present after I discovered Bitch.

Growing up, I was influenced by female musicians – Madonna, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Salt-n-Peppa, TLC, Janet Jackson, En Vogue, and more.  Later in high school, I adored Gwen Steffani and despised The Spice Girls.  And if you told me back in 2000 when Pink’s first album debuted that I would tell you today that Pink is my new feminist hero, I’d probably laugh in your face.  


Here’s the deal.  I am obsessed with the song “Glitter in the Air” and I didn’t realize it was Pink who sang it – my sister clued me in.  So last week I purchased my first CD in roughly two years, Pink’s Funhouse.  I can’t lie – I’ve listened to the whole album, all the way through, at least four times in less than a week while driving in my car.  Last night I spent two hours watching all of Pink’s videos on her YouTube Channel.  I know, I have no life.  While watching her videos, I realized that Pink is a feminist, albeit a slightly unconventional one.  I’m going to direct your attention to two videos in particular, “Raise Your Glass” and “Stupid Girls.”      


Briefly, the issues raised/addressed in “Raise Your Glass” video: female obesity, gay marriage, feminist icons (Rosie the Riveter), animal cruelty (protesting of killing bulls, milking cows), race issues, outcasts, culture clashes (gangsters, skateboarders), beauty ideals, religion, sex, and education.  All of this in less than 3 minutes, 22 seconds.  Damn, she’s good.  


A portion of the lyrics:

So raise your glass if you are wrong

In all the right ways

All my underdogs, we will never be

Anything but loud

And nitty gritty

Dirty little freaks

Won’t you come on, and come on, and

Raise your glass

Just come on and come and 

Raise your glass

Watch it for yourself.

The “Stupid Girls” video cracked me up, I couldn’t stop laughing.  It’s rather scathing in its condemnation of stupid girls (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, etc.).  My favorite part of the lyrics:

I’m so glad that I’ll never fit in

That will never be me

Outcasts and girls with ambition

That’s what I wanna see

I love the image of Pink, dressed in a rather conservative outfit with glasses, standing behind a podium – insinuating that our fight for a woman president is far from over.


Watch it for yourself.

So while academic scholarship might not agree with me, I think Pink can and does act as a feminist hero.  What do you think?  You can check out the rest of her videos on her YouTube Channel, or visit her official website to read through her song lyrics.  Let me know.