I know I may be a bit behind, but I do have something to say surrounding the controversy behind Meghan Trainor’s “Dear Future Husband.” I just can’t. The song itself is insipid. No, I don’t like the one sided mentality Trainor has, that women are crazy and men are basically servants. But the way some people are carrying on about the song and video, you would think Trainor was singing a ditty about how women shouldn’t be allowed to vote or drive and that abortion is wrong so we should spend all our time giving birth and never saying a word about it.
Part of me thinks Trainor is such a target because many people expected her to be the voice of the average person, that because she isn’t a supermodel with a microphone like Katy Perry or Nicki Minaj (who have been made into real Barbie dolls in the past,) she should be alternative and 100% feminist. Instead, her attempt at female body positivity turned out to be all about boys and what they want, followed by a song about how all men are liars, and now a very one sided list of demands for a potential husband that’s accompanied by a video of Trainor sexily washing a kitchen floor.
Is it problematic that Trainor is considered a teen idol and spreading such a message to young girls? Yes. Is it the most sexist thing in the history of the world? No way. I think I’m more burnt out by the degree of anger people have towards the candy colored throwback, acting like it’s the biggest injustice ever committed against women. There are far more important issues than an insipid pop song that feminists should be fighting against. More and more states are making it harder to get an abortion, there’s still the matter of equal pay for equal work, and why women in the media constantly get quizzed about clothes, nails and diets while their male counterparts get to discuss whatever they’re promoting. That should be the bigger concern.
So in short, while Trainor’s song is dopey and could use a refresher as to what a healthy marriage actually entails, I really don’t think it’s the most offensive thing that has ever happened in popular culture. I don’t know if it’s me getting older or burning myself out getting so angry during my time at LivLuna where I destroyed Taylor Swift not once, but twice over her boy craziness, but I really wish people would just step back and see that you can’t have the same level of anger for everything that offends you.
I’ll put it to you this way–when I was in college, I had friends who were part of a social justice organization. I admired what they did, but didn’t always agree with them. This prevented me from really joining them, as I was afraid that if I didn’t get angry over every single thing they got angry about, I wouldn’t be good. But when the issue of the food service workers on campus not having a contract came up during my senior year? I was all over it. And honestly, I felt better connected to the cause as I wasn’t spreading my energy to every single cause that came up alongside it. I was able to focus on the right things. Perhaps some of it is age (I notice most of the blogs having a major coronary with Trainor’s video are oriented towards younger audiences,) but I think overall, it’s learning to figure out just how angry to get over a particular subject. Aside from my winter burn out, I’ve been struggling to come up with content for this reason. What deserves my anger, and what deserves a “meh?”
Kathleen H. Furey 