Kiss With A Fist

A Kiss with a Fist (is better than None)”
By Florence and the Machine

You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed […]

My black eye casts no shadow
Your red eye sees nothing
Your slap don't stick
Your kicks don't hit
So we remain the same
Love sticks
Sweat drips
Break the lock if it don't fit […]

A kick to the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better then none

A kiss with a fist is better then none

I broke your jaw once before
I spilled your blood upon the floor
You broke my leg in return
So sit back and watch the bed burn
Love sticks
Sweat drips
Break the lock if it don't fit

A kick to the teeth is good for some
A kiss with a fist is better then none

A kiss with a fist is better then none



“A Kiss with a Fist (is better than none)” by Florence and the Machine is a new song which is now being played in heavy rotation on alternative radio stations across the nation. On a given day, this song will rotate at least once an hour on local radio, and has become very popular in recent weeks.

Both the recorded song and music video have an upbeat, fun, lively, pop-punk feeling. From just a casual listen, the lead singer’s mousy, warbling voice punctuates the guitar licks in a way which makes you want to crank the radio up and rock out. In fact, it almost feels like some sort of anthem you should belt out loud.


But I’ve found, as a listener, you simply cannot escape the graphic lyrics. These lyrics mirror the words DV advocates never want to hear. These lyrics reflect the attitudes that we work constantly to address and change in our communities. These lyrics depict the very actions that often stonewall efforts to bring charges against abusers. These lyrics embody the confusing messages which drive our clients to minimize their own abuse. In a sense, these lyrics invalidate the core belief that no one should be mistreated or terrorized in a relationship by suggesting that its okay to stay, as long as you fight back.

Until you hear the stories of actual women who are trying to survive an abusive situation, it can be difficult to imagine that the scenarios painted in these lyrics can in fact be real. It’s easier to pretend that acts this heinous are not committed in intimate relationships, yet, frighteningly enough, they are. Every day. I think back to statements I’ve heard from women about how their abuser “wasn’t so bad” because he was great with their kids or held a steady job. Never mind the constant physical assaults and domination she endured for years because in the scope of her life, the most recent incident wasn’t really “that bad.” He may have drug her across the floor, drunkenly kicked her in the face or strangled her to the point of having Petechiae, but at the end of the day, she did punch him in the arm when he called her degrading names after she confronted him about his actions. It’s her fault because she did hit him first, she started it.

I was stunned to hear this song on the radio. Certainly there would be some sort of public response considering timing of the song’s major US release puts it in strongest rotation during National Domestic Violence Awareness month. A search on the internet finds quite the opposite:

“Gleefully straddling across the prog-rock, punk divide, Florence is going to be huge this year– at least in England, where a girl can sing rock songs with a title like "Kiss With a Fist" without totally freaking out the male population.” (Queerty.com)

“It's all a bit of a (rather sinister) laugh, as Welch's refrain "a kiss with a fist is better than none" is supported by her own lack of submission to the beau whose jaw she once broke. Clearly, Florence is no victim in this Punch and Judy romp.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jun/10/singlesclub.rosieswash)

So the question remains, is the song just a rallying cry to women to begin fight back against their abusers? If they do, does their retaliation then nullify the abuse they are experiencing? By using violence, are they now on equal footing with their abusers?

In V.A.W.A’s Applied Research Forum Paper, ”Towards an Understanding of Women’s Use of Non-Lethal Violence in Intimate Heterosexual Relationships” by Shamita Das Dasgupta, the author urges us to consider this aspect of supposedly mutually abusive relationships; “In reality, men’s violence strikes prolonged fear in their partners whereas such behavior by women tends not to produce similar results.” Dasgupta goes on to state: "Furthermore, the majority of research findings report that women who use violence are battered themselves and use physical aggression to escape or stop this abuse. Studies also indicate that women are generally quite unsuccessful in achieving their objectives. In most cases women are able to neither control violence against themselves nor modify their abusers’ behaviors according to their own will." (www.vawanet.org)

In other words, generally, fighting back does not end the abuse nor does it return power to the victim in a way that will result in change.

With regards to the song, we still should consider the intentions of the artist. Florence and the Machine lead singer Stephanie West says that she didn’t write the song about an abusive relationship, but one in which the power struggles are what actually strengthens the song characters’ bond. In a recent interview, she explains her work,

“Well it’s not about domestic violence,” West says, “[…] you know when you see a couple and their whole thing is…they fight. That is what keeps [us] together, but that’s what tears [us] apart. Two people giving as good as they get. They are sort of destroying each other, but that’s [the violence] what binds them.” (http://new.music.yahoo.com/programs/the-new-now/28/rage-against-florencethe-machine) Emphasis added.

Mirroring the West’s assessment that these relationships are held together through the thread of constant retaliation and violence, for our clients, it is hard to imagine a life or relationship without the presence of abuse. A relationship filled with “drama” and “passion” is often perceived as one filled with strong love. Ultimately, this may be the reason why some victims struggle with the choice to stay because they believe “they can handle it.” They have learned how to survive, albeit problematically, in the midst of constant dysfunction and violence. It takes a great deal of courage and strength of character to muster the will to leave an unhealthy relationship.

My concern is that presented without context, without dialogue and without resolution, this song has the potential to send the wrong messages to young women and men about what defines a loving relationship and most importantly, what defines abuse. Unfortunately, “Kiss With a Fist” does not end with the narrator leaving the relationship or her insistence that her life does not have to be lived in constant conflict. We as the audience are left to imagine what will happen after the song stops. I believe as advocates, we can use our voices to question these mixed messages and to help move our community away from examples which accept "mutual" abuse as a way of life and confidently toward examples of mutual respect and love.

article found via Bitch Mag - discussions

Since when did a bloody face become fashionable?

DSquared menswear Fall 2010


What is going on with the aesthetic of violence and masculinity? Terrorized and violent representations of men in pop culture arguably become a symbolic portrayal of a war obsessed culture that fixates itself on violent domination as a sites of empowerment. I think this empowerment is possible for women (Ie: Hilary swank as the Karate Kid, um, that was kinda empowering... right?! ) but when its a man its just becomes another site of hyper-masculine violence.

Men wearing blood as a heroic or warrior like aesthetic becomes somewhat problematic. Contrary to some beliefs we don't live in a post-feminist world, our culture, our economy, our wars are very much driven by a white-supremacist and patriarchal regime. So this is exactly why bloody male faces on runways can become sites of masculinity in terror. is it possible that the "war on terror" has become internalized? are men valorizing a bloody fractured idea of masculinity in order to assert a stronger more warrior like image of a gender identity? I have no idea, i just think its frightening to see bloody men as a fashionable aesthetic!

Conversations

I created a zine recently for my Gender and Violence class. It includes a series of conversations between various figures about violence. I got some really positive feedback from my prof today, so I thought I would post a segment from it. I am going to submit a copy to the Toronto Zine Library if you are interested. Who knows, it may become a series.

Part I

Pocahontas gets a chance to bitch out Walt Disney

P: Fuck you!
D: What?
P: Fuck. You.
D: What did I ever do to you?
P: What didn’t you do to my life?
D: Oh that.
P: Yeah, THAT.
D: I don’t see why you are complaining. I turned your life into a beautiful love story about cultural misunderstanding! I made you a Princess!
P: Fuck that and your Disnified American morality! I’m not one of your perfect cookie-cutter princesses! I am not, and was not the sexual Barbie-esque woman you made me into. I was 12!
D: That’s why we made you into an adult. The true story would have been too scandalous.
P: The true story would have revealed white people as colonialist swine.
D: Yes, well we’re choosy about history. Sometimes bending the truth is best.
P: Sometimes it’s better to throw truth out the window, which is what you did. You put my name on it so that you could claim some kind of historical basis. The whole story was total bullshit from both sides. Just because we’re native doesn’t mean you need to take same hippified interpretation of native spirituality to the point where I actually converse with a tree.
D: But we made you the good guys!
P: I appreciate your understanding that the colonialists were evil bastards.
D: Thanks.
P: But that doesn’t mean I’m happy. You turned my life into a tale of morality that totally ignores the colonialist power implications involved. I was a native girl that was kidnapped and died young and far away from home. What kind of life is that? How is that one of your fairy tales? You should have gone with Sacagawea, you could have pretended that she wasn’t captured and sold to a French fur trapper. You could have made her a feminist icon!
D: There’s no potential love story in that.
P: You could get rid of the French man and give her a polyamorous relationship with Lewis and Clark. It could be hot; you’d get the gay vote too!
D: Ummm
P: Oh, That’s right; you don’t do gay do you?
D: I just don’t think society is ready for polyamory just yet.
P: Of course not, but they are all set to eroticize native women, you’ve only being doing that as a society since the discovery of the new world after all.
D: ...
P: Listen Walt, are you listening? Ok, don’t fuck with history. Do you know what happens when you fuck with history? No, I’m sure you don’t, no one fucks with your history after all. When you change history you deny and erase important truths. Important truths like the fact that I was not a princess, I was not in love and I wasn’t a woman yet. Important truths like that natives did not actually speak to trees, and that our culture had its own set of issues and autonomy. I understand that you did do some research, and that’s great, I totally dig it. Just don’t fuck with history. Because fucking with history ignores the violence that was done to us.
D: So, I guess I have a lot of work to do.
P: Pretty much.
D: I’m sorry
P: Prove it.
D: How?
P: I’m not sure you can.
D: What can I do?
P: I’d like to see your next princess not be a racist stereotype with a waist the size of a toothpick, but that might be asking a lot.
D: I can try.

STAY TUNED for ROLLERDERBY and my review of NEW MOON and the twilight franchise.