"I'm not nothing without a steady hand"

[Wet Fire 5,687]

9 minutes ago, HermioneT said:

This is the kind of content I signed up for on this site.  thanks for sharing your interpretation and knowledge.on the topic.

You're welcome 

[ShesAMess 1,560]

@Wet Fire thank you for posting this your interpretation was really interesting to read since it was something that didn’t even cross my mind

I always just went with the thought that it was about addiction.... so the chorus would be that you’re still something even with an addiction, you’re still something even if you’re not sure of yourself and you’re still something even if you don’t have a man

(what a holy trinity of insecurities there )

but i gotta say yours is way more exciting 

[HausOfAntonio 7,821]

51 minutes ago, Wet Fire said:

Actually, not totally. It's easy to think of the idea of the Muse to be sexist and dehumanizing from a 21st century perspective (since it limited women to the role of passive inspiring entities instead of giving them freedom to write themselves). However, in ancient Greece, where the idea of the muse first originated, the muse was the most powerful agent in a writer's career. Because at that time, literature was based on a oral tradition. The poet was seen only as a mediator who had the skill to pen it down. No male author could claim that he created something. Originality or the poet's agency didn't really matter. If a poet said he did it himself, he would suffer public infamy because of his arrogance and pride (what Greeks called hubris). So, each poet had to acknowledge that the Muse was the one who helped him write it. So much so that the Muse was thought to be the one without whose influence no man can write anything. The poets had to declare that female muses are the ones behind his creation and the public considered the muse to be the omnipotent being in art. Now, it is a pedestal and raising women to a pedestal does limit their freedom. But overall, the femine side of creation had to be acknowledged.

I understand the historical legacy and that’s interesting to know as I really had no clue. I was just referring to the stuff that happened after that 

[Wet Fire 5,687]

2 hours ago, ShesAMess said:

@Wet Fire thank you for posting this your interpretation was really interesting to read since it was something that didn’t even cross my mind

I always just went with the thought that it was about addiction.... so the chorus would be that you’re still something even with an addiction, you’re still something even if you’re not sure of yourself and you’re still something even if you don’t have a man

(what a holy trinity of insecurities there )

but i gotta say yours is way more exciting 

The trinity followed by legions more in my case 

[Wet Fire 5,687]

1 hour ago, HausOfAntonio said:

I understand the historical legacy and that’s interesting to know as I really had no clue. I was just referring to the stuff that happened after that 

You mean the way we fuked up history and civilization? As usual? 

[Hanavel 133]

That's a beautiful approach to that song. The Mad woman in the Attic by Gilbert and Gubar also touches that way of masturbation and the symbolims of the word 'penning' as 'penetration' 

[My Name Isnt Alice 3,737]

15 hours ago, flopheart said:

btw i hate the double negation "I'm not nothing", syntactically it really bothers me

Can also be read as nut nutting or not nutting 

[Wet Fire 5,687]

21 minutes ago, Hanavel said:

That's a beautiful approach to that song. The Mad woman in the Attic by Gilbert and Gubar also touches that way of masturbation and the symbolims of the word 'penning' as 'penetration' 

Yes, thanks for this nice addition to the conversation  I haven't read the whole book but I loved the chapter in which Gilbert and Gubar do a feminist retelling of Plato's parable of the cave. The way they related the cave to the womb, and to the source of writing by women. 

[TheSlash 14,539]

16 hours ago, Quartz said:

Yasss Dancin' In Circles wbk

I wish I was the water

[Wet Fire 5,687]

Just now, TheSlash said:

I wish I was the water

I wish I was the shirt and the underwear 

[chromaticainmyhead 5,492]

After the release of the album there were descriptions about the meaning of each song added to the Chromatica playlist. Gaga said that the phrase „Free Woman“ can be applied to any gender. That she believes the language of gender is universal. Personally I like to listen to the song thinking about this that this is not solely directed at women per se but the power of a female voice and perspective is rather used as empowerment for all gender identities. I think that there is sort of an intentional paradoxon of understanding in this song that a cis woman tries to free cis men through her own story of empowerment. There is such beauty behind the idea of a cis women freeing all gender including cis male people which is still extremely stigmatized which ultimately makes this idea of women freeing men a paradoxon bc men do not see themselves in chains to hold up the power that they have.

And given how much stigma and supression there still is around female genitals and female masturbation I really agree with your interpretation that this phrase could be about a woman finding her own freedom in masturbation and ultimately freeing others with her found empowerment through sex. „I am not nothing unless I know we can“ given the importance of a hand that must not be steady but rather a form of collaboration when you want to have sex. Which is very beautiful that hands are non-binary in that context and have a neutral connotation in the perspective of society. Which is not the case for female or male genitals. Society is constantly telling us that the man with his penis is the dominant power when it comes to sex because he is the one who is penetrating the woman. And Gaga is handling this stigma so powerfully yet in a very tender way that she says „Let us use our hands.“

 [... I know we can“]

[Gagas lil monster 2,424]

...oop 

[Wet Fire 5,687]

25 minutes ago, venusinmyhead said:

After the release of the album there were descriptions about the meaning of each song added to the Chromatica playlist. Gaga said that the phrase „Free Woman“ can be applied to any gender. That she believes the language of gender is universal. Personally I like to listen to the song thinking about this that this is not solely directed at women per se but the power of a female voice and perspective is rather used as empowerment for all gender identities. I think that there is sort of an intentional paradoxon of understanding in this song that a cis woman tries to free cis men through her own story of empowerment. There is such beauty behind the idea of a cis women freeing all gender including cis male people which is still extremely stigmatized which ultimately makes this idea of women freeing men a paradoxon bc men do not see themselves in chains to hold up the power that they have.

And given how much stigma and supression there still is around female genitals and female masturbation I really agree with your interpretation that this phrase could be about a woman finding her own freedom in masturbation and ultimately freeing others with her found empowerment through sex. „I am not nothing unless I know we can“ given the importance of a hand that must not be steady but rather a form of collaboration when you want to have sex. Which is very beautiful that hands are non-binary in that context and have a neutral connotation in the perspective of society. Which is not the case for female or male genitals. Society is constantly telling us that the man with his penis is the dominant power when it comes to sex because he is the one who is penetrating the woman. And Gaga is handling this stigma so powerfully yet in a very tender way that she says „Let us use our hands.“

 [... I know we can“]

Very well said.  It's really interesting how you see the hand as a means of going beyond the penis/vagina binary. Free Woman can definitely be read as a call for men to free their inner women, even though it may sound weird. This reminds me of a comment by Virginia Woolf who quotes Coleridge to say that a great mind must be androgynous. The feminine and masculine parts must lose their independence to come together to create a fertilized mind which can give birth to art.

[Mr S 7,636]

Reach. 

Plus isn't there like 15 male co-writers on that song? Beyonce tease.

[Wet Fire 5,687]

11 minutes ago, Mr S said:

Reach. 

Plus isn't there like 15 male co-writers on that song? Beyonce tease.

1. It's not a reach as long as there is proper critical argument.

2. The strand of feminist literary tradition that I'm referring to has nothing to do with the sex/gender of the writer.

Edit: you may read the whole thread to understand the 2nd point.