Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

If you are, know, or think you might ever meet a girl or young woman, and you haven't already been persuaded to pick up Courtney Martin's new book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, go read Hugo's review of it now. I'll try to post my own thoughts about it when a)I finish the book and b)I'm a little more coherent than I'm feeling right now.

Songs to Make Me Cry... For the Wrong Reasons

AKMA has a post today linking to the AV Club's list of songs that make them cry. As a lifelong crier, I don't want to denigrate any such list too much. I'm moved to ask, though, why they all seem to be by men.* Really? even when it comes to tears, men are the only ones worth citing? I thought that was supposed to be women's special domain.

It took 25 comments even to get Joni Mitchell in there at all. Hello? River? the remake of Both Sides Now? her cover of Hallelujah? pick any grouping of Joni's music and you'll find a tearjerker.

Here are my 18 tearjerkers, then, to counter the men's. Yes, they're mostly women. Yes, there are repeat artists. Yes, all that is partly on purpose and partly because that's what I actually listen to.**

1. She's Saving Me - Indigo Girls. This is the song that has most consistently made me cry over the longest period of time.
2. I'll Miss You Till I Meet You - Dar Williams. I'm never sure whether she's singing this for an ex, or a dead friend, or a dead ex. I don't really care - it's heartbreaking either way.
3. Don't Lay Down - Catie Curtis
4. Tangled-up Puppet - Harry Chapin
5. Leavin on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul, & Mary. I wept for months after leaving camp one summer, listening to this song over and over.
6. Hallelujah (I don't care whose version, really - mostly I listen to either Joni's or Rufus Wainwright's)
7. Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy's version
8. River - I came to this song on the Indigo Girls' version, but Joni Mitchell's version works equally well
9. Hurt - but again, I don't really care whose version. Cash's and Reznor's are heartbreaking in different ways.
10. Fighting Chance - Melissa Ferrick
11. Don't Cry Anymore - Catie Curtis
12. Fields of Athenry - my version is by One of the Girls, but I'm sure there are more commercial versions out there.
13. Fatherless at 14 - Kendall Payne.
14. Hold On - Sarah McLachlan
15. And So It Goes - Billy Joel
16. American Tune - Paul Simon
17. Untouchable Face - Ani Difranco
18. Language or the Kiss - Indigo Girls

*Admittedly, some of these aren't bands I know at all. Maybe there are women in them; maybe one or two is even primarily/exclusively composed of women, though I doubt it. I still don't see anything that makes women artists visible.

**And, no, I'm not even letting myself use musical theater tunes, which could be their own 18 songs.

Except not really...

Ok, I really am about to go finish a paper, but I was just looking at Commencement pictures on Smith's website (trying originally to find a picture of Davis Center to link to), and I had to share. There is a picture of the '81 alums in the Ivy Day parade that shows one holding a sign on which is printed "'81: When the greatest risk of sex was pregnancy."

Um. Wow. Ok. I know this is a women's college, and there are fewer occurrences of STDs on women's college campuses than on coed campuses, partly because lesbian sex tends to be a little safer as far as diseases go - but is she serious? Just because you thought the greatest risk was pregnancy doesn't mean it was true, woman - STDs have been around for years and years and years - and especially now that we know way more about sex, disease, and the early 80s than anyone did then, why on earth would you make such a claim?

I think I'm glad the picture doesn't show the face of the woman holding that sign. Ugh.