Empowerment?

Choosing today's theme song turned into more of an exercise in frustration than it should have been.  It's only the second day of the year!  This does not bode well for my resolution of choosing a theme song for every day, does it?

I wanted to find a song about being a strong woman.  I am not a big fan of the word "empowered" but it is the one that seems to be used the most in regards to shaving my head.  Shaving my head definitely makes me feel more . . . something.  

More courageous.  More powerful.  More beautiful.  More . . . me.

So I wanted to find a song that reflected some of that feeling.  But every song I found that was supposedly about "empowered women" seemed to be about women who had kicked a loser man to the side, or a woman who had been told she was something less than beautiful and the song was telling her that she is, in fact, beautiful.

Is that what empowerment means?  Is it one of those words whose meaning is more fluid, left to the interpretation of the individual?  Possibly.  For me, being empowered means that I have control of me.  No one else is dictating what I do, how I dress, where I go, who I am friends with.  I have that control.  But who decided that a woman can only be empowered if she is not with a man?

Apparently a large number of songwriters did.

According to The Pussycat Dolls

I don't need a man to make it happen
I get off being free
I don't need a man to make me feel good
I get off doing my thing
I don't need a ring around my finger
To make me feel complete
So let me break it down
I can get off when you ain't around
Oh!

Me thinks they doth protest too much.

Natasha Bedingfield says . . .

I'm not waitin' around for a man to save me
('Cause I'm happy where I am)
Don't depend on a guy to validate me
(No no)
I don't need to be anyone's baby
(Is that so hard to understand?)
No I don't need another half to make me whole 

This one makes me laugh because, after Natasha Bedingfield found a man, she released the song "Angel" where she talks about says "Disrespect my man, you're gonna have to come see me."  Amazing how not being single changes a woman's outlook, eh?

There are so many other songs out there that supposedly sing the praises of empowered women, while at the same time talking about how men are dogs.  Where are the songs about empowered women and the men who love them?  Those are the songs I want to hear!

Of course, I'm sure they're out there if I really went looking for them.  With my luck they're all country songs though.  Ugh.  The point being, however, today I wanted my theme song to be something about feeling more in control, powerful, beautiful.  So finally I started trawling through my massive iTunes library and I finally found something that I think works well.  It starts like this:

Everybody wants to
Look into the mirror
And feel a little better now

And everybody wants to
Know there's someone out there
Waiting for you to come around

The song is Beautiful Like You by Lee DeWyze.  It works.  We should all think of the world as being beautiful like us, right?  Take a minute and listen to it and I think you'll agree.  May you all feel beautiful today.  Like me.

Lee DeWyze - Beautiful Like You