Our Society Values Women, and it Doesn’t

Yesterday I went bowling with our young adults group at the church. We had a great time! We walked into the bowling alley and they had screens up behind the lanes so that they could show music videos and sports games. As I listened to the music (all popular songs), my heart broke.

My heart broke because in almost every song women were made out to be nothing more than objects to be used for some sort of sexual pleasure. In some of the songs, like Work from Home by Fifth Harmony featuring Ty Dolla $ign, women even sang about volunteering to make themselves objects to be used for sex by men who did not care about them whatsoever.

This is what many in our society call art and I weep so deeply that my tears dry before they have a chance to fall because the women in our society are made out to be nothing more than a sex object for the sake of art; though I am not convinced it is art, only a cheap gimmick so people who self-identify as artists can make money or become famous.

I simply want to say one thing, and this will be brief. If all people are created with equal worth by God, then women cannot be objects to be used for sex. It amazes me that we live in a society that would agree with the idea that women are created with an equal worth to that of men. Society screams that women are independent, beautiful, self-sufficient, worth fighting for, worth pursuing, worth sacrificing everything for and that they ought to have the same opportunities that men have. Yet in our most popular forms of art, this society we live in supports music and movies that subject women as nothing more than objects to be used for sex. This is a great contradiction in this society because it supports exactly the things it speaks out against. If our society truly felt that women were equal to men, the most popular music would not be music that abases women as it does.

I heard a young woman say, “This is my favorite song,” when Work from Home began playing. The music video was just one tier below what we might consider pornography and the song made me sick because women are worth so much more. I don’t know if we are guilty of only listening to the beat, but let me encourage those reading this to consider the lyrics and the meaning of a song before supporting any artist (even in the realm of Christian music). Let us prove that we truly do believe in the equality of women and men.