UW Bothell Graduate Students performing a skit about how women are represented in popular music. Then they ask what people get from the skit about how women and love are represented in popular music. People came up with that strength in women is represented as hateful in popular music, women are represented as faceless and sexy, they are supposed to want to “land a man,” and be competitive, hyper-sexualized. After that list, we made another one about different ways to love, included cats, myself/identity, trust, non-judgment, solidarity, different people together, safety, respect, collaboration, something that wants to make you a better person.

Now we are in small groups, talking about quotes about love from activists, revolutionaries, feminist theorists. Che Guevara, bell hooks, Audre Lorde. The goal is to find songs we love that are about love that could be read as that kind of love we want. How to make those other other kinds of love songs. When we find a song that does it, we are going to make a CD cover. Wow, this is great. A little while ago we couldn’t think of any songs that we could find those kinds of love we wanted reflected in, now we are all working in glitter, marking pens, stickers, making our CDs. I’m making a CD cover for “Let’s Face the Music and Dance…” Sometimes that’s a sad song, but it’s also a song about seizing the moment, “Before the fiddlers have fled, before they ask us to make the bed, and while we still have a chance… Let’s face the music and DANCE.” The one is great for not throwing our capacity for love away on people who don’t care about us, it’s about not wasting time, it’s about using the time to make change…

Now we’re going to vote on the songs!!! This is fun.