Niki Andre Asks Where The Men Of The Community Are

Healing Love
lit: Niki Andre

Are we drowning in the chasm? I'm looking for some masculine tracks to mend the rift I'm feeling being between the ladies and gents of the world:

PART I
Where Are Our Boys?
Here's me calling out for a line! Where are our husbands, fathers and brothers in all this? (For what I mean by all of this, please see "PART II" below.) There should be a wealth of songs like John Mayer's "Daughters" out there...We crave them, we need them; those lyrics are a balm...So how come I can only think of one? And where is the urban equivalent? I'm fixing to compile a playlist of male artists to remind us ladies of the wealth of good men on the shore. Please post your suggestions (with links to the songs if you can). I will keep a running list in my monthly blog. Standard "I love you baby" love songs need not apply. I'm looking for songs that reach beyond a one on one love affair and speak to mens' universal relationship with the ladies of the world.


PART II
International Womyn's Day, Has Feminism Failed Us?
Warmongers and rapists have misappropriated change but only because our consciousness for change is slow, dull and small enough for them to transfigure (and sometimes) destroy. Transformation has the ability to move much fast than any war, so how are they so often catching us, the vast majority, who want peace?

Eve Ensler has been reproached for dubbing the misogynist state of the world as a full-on "femicide". But with 1 in 3 women having survived rape or physical attack, it's impossible to argue her words are alarmist.*

By and large, we are not truly walking the talk of preserving our natural feminine power, desire and protection of peace. We resign to compromise and submit before we even attempt defiance and resistance. Too often, we're not even trying to call out for help! Why?

When someone is drowning, it takes someone on the shore to throw them a line. Our divisive culture has become so "us and them", that women drown wordlessly -or grasp the hands of their sisters, already in it up to their chins - convinced that no one on the shore can possibly care...Well, so many of the dry turn a blind eye...

But we are inextricably one.
It's been said that the world's people are like a human body. "When one part of the body is in pain, it is impossible for the rest of the body to feel comfortable".** Here is the genesis of every rape and every war: those on the shore ignore the growing knot in the pit of their stomachs until one day, the tide comes in, and there is a holocaust at their doors.

Can we try a dialogue this time? Ladies, have he faith and courage to call out. Tell the men in your life what makes your feel threatened as a woman. Gentlemen, have the faith and courage to listen and defend.

All these insidious "little" ways our culture markets women as one dimensional commodities for sexual consumption are not benign "sex sells" tactics (regardless of whether women buy in to them or not), they are the foundation blocks for a culture of rape.


* source: "Ensler Continues Fighting Violence Against Women" Toronto Star, March 08, 2008 - http://www.thestar.com/article/310180
** I'm paraphrasing a quote in the documentary film "Scared Sacred" by Velcrow Ripper - www.scaredsacred.org

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Niki Andre is an Indie Artist making Dirty Jazz ^_^.
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