Katze mit Wut

One of the fabulous subversive words invented by the incomparable twisty — more on her in the "footnote" — is empowerful. Empowerful as in empowered, the prefix em-, like en- or in- denoting that the power is invested in her from without, lest somebody think that females might be naturally powerful. The distinction matters.

Empowerment is a rather fitting word though, as it is traditionally suggested that the power held by women is sexual power. In other words, sexuality grants women "power" over men who hold actual, real power. Women use that vile witchy power of sexuality to "control men" and channel some of those men's power into themselves, thereby empowering themselves. This obviously is quite different from finding her own power within, that is, actually being powerful by herself, rather than by proxy. It follows quite naturally that the more sexuality a woman can express, the more empowerful she is. It is for this reason that women aide in their own pornification. This pornification, some may say, is reaching new heights both in intensity (in the current fetish fashion and raunch culture) and extent (the pornification of preteens; "corporate paedophilia"). Enough maybe for some to think that it has come to the point where something's gotta give, where only a backlash can follow, but personally, I'm not so sure. That this will happen. That if it happens it will be a backlash that makes things better for women.

This of course means that there are women who don't get to be empowerful: those who cannot or will not conform to beauty standards; those who will not pornify themselves, the fat and the old and the butch and, oftentimes, the poor. It also means that if you end up in one of those groups — by gaining weight, getting old, getting bored with the effort of the performance that is beauty, or otherwise not being a feast for the male gaze and thereby neglecting your duties as a member of the sex class —, you fall out of favour, and lose "your" power, as it is only by power by proxy, and never was yours to begin with.

This is particularly interesting when considering how well we're told many 1^st world women do in school and uni in recent years. It would certainly be instructive to investigate to what degree this finding intersects with that that nowadays, we exist to the degree that we exist in the media. Which, if we stick to the modes of expression traditionally allowed to us, reinforces those stereotypes, of course.

Way back in the seventies, before I was born, when the world was young and dinosaurs walked the earth, a Steely Dan promo for radio DJs came with a tacky t-shirt. It was pink. Which was useless given most DJs were men. And it only had the words "Steely Dan t-shirt" printed on it. It was, however, incredibly, -credibly rare, so it became a sought-after collector's item.

Steely Dan themselves commented on that in another song, Show Business Kids: "They got the house on the corner, with rug inside; they got the booze they need, all that money can buy; they got the shapely body, they got the Steely Dan t-shirt" — casting the shirt as the ultimate empty status symbol.

This is how I remember the story. I'm making a special point out of not looking it up to check, because it's a legend, guys, drift is practically a requirement! That said, the Steely Dan site usually makes for a good read. And so do the Steely Dan dictionary and possibly the interpretations site.

Anyway, I always wanted one, because it was so … HHOS or something. Not taking itself seriously to just the right degree.

They reprinted for the current tour.