Motherhood looks iconic on RiRi
Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance (and the subsequent backlash) can teach us a thing or two about what society really doesn’t get when it comes to women, working, motherhood & pregnancy.
“The single worst Halftime Show in Super Bowl history. Also, so much for her ‘stylist’"
– The man with an orange spray tan who has adorned the same comb over since 1973.
Whilst absolutely nobody should amplify this guy’s views on popular culture (and we refuse to even mention his name), we felt the level of CHEEK around this statement was important to make our point:
Women, especially women of color, are expected to operate at maximum levels – or more – when pregnant, breastfeeding, recovering from childbirth adjusting to motherhood and endless sleepless nights.
And, when we don’t *ahem* perform the way we’re ‘supposed’ to, we’re cast aside as not good enough.
Instead of our first reaction to be to CELEBRATE women, for the sheer miracle that is surviving your body blowing up to 3-4 times its size, your organs being rearranged and then having a whole separate human being exiting your body, in one miserable form or another, we look at them like, is that it?
Now, of course, many people are celebrating Rihanna (can we be friends). And, many people do celebrate women and the miracle that is the creation of life.
But, the sad and alarming fact is, many people still don't.
You only have to look at the response to the aforementioned tweet to see that at least 50% of the literal global population agree with the orange potato.
A woman, still in the depths of early stage new motherhood where sleepless night after sleepless night begins to roll from one into the other, another 6 months pregnant with her second child, her body and organs, while recovering, also moving around to make room for the next growing human, wearing latex and a shoulder-to-toe length puffer jacket, after hours of rehearsals to get the production just right, in a temperature of about 10 degrees celsius, sings live suspended on moving platforms, anything from 15 to 60 feet in the air, with about 2-3 minutes either side of the performance to get in, do the damn thing and get out without touching the precious grass so the men don’t get upset, and the global reaction is:
“Meh”
I MEAN REALLY?
When I was 6 months pregnant, I couldn’t even be coaxed out of my house past 6pm by the temptation of food. I was permanently trying to find the least uncomfortable position possible to lay down so that I could hoist my veiny and swollen ankles into the air and catch my breath.
Going to the bathroom was a challenge.
And, here we are, in 2023, and there are real, living, breathing humans who just wanted her to try a bit harder.
The replies to that tweet (and others) were things like:
“Good for her for being pregnant! But she should have passed and let someone else perform!”
“I couldn’t care less about the political side of it but as a halftime show that was very weak”
“Her performance sucked in comparison to the last one”
“It did suck. She just stood there and wanted people to stare at her.”
– Sigh. We won’t go on.
We’re here instead to throw a massive middle finger up to all of that.
We think Rihanna’s Half Time show was ABSOLUTELY LEGENDARY.
She’s just so cool.
She’s like that friend that just does everything right.
She is inexplicably, remarkably, unattainably beautiful and sexy, funny, and it doesn’t annoy you even a little bit. Like she does all of it just enough. You can’t help but love it and want more.
So, is she the only person in the world that could come back from nearly 7 years out of the music game with a Super Bowl performance to end all Super Bowl performances and make all middle aged conservative white men feel dizzy?
Probably.
And, I’m very grateful that she did.
She’s a beauty industry mogul, a self-made billionaire, a new mother, pregnant, a fashion icon, and the definition of an empowered woman.
STAND UP CLAP TO THAT.
We, as a society, need to stop expecting mothers (especially new and pregnant ones) to be more agreeable, attractive, and less offensive to men.
We, as a society, need to stop asking mothers to operate at levels they could before they had humans growing inside them, living off of them, and night-long nurturing to do.
We, as a society, NEED to start recognising that, while motherhood is inexplicably the most rewarding and soul-expanding experience, it’s also HARD.
Motherhood isn’t just a natural progression: girl to woman to mother. It takes sacrifice, commitment, tenacity, and a bucket load of love. It takes work. It takes intention. It takes ENERGY.
The women who choose to do it and the women who don’t all have to make sacrifices that are hard to even comprehend, when you look at it logistically in today’s society.
So. Let’s start recognising those choices and commitments. Let’s start celebrating the pure magic that is choosing to create, birth and nurture another human life.
Let’s start celebrating women like Rihanna even just for the fact that SHE SHOWED UP.
Everything that happened outside of that, was quite simply breathtaking.
Celebrating you today and everyday, mamas.
"My body is doing incredible things right now, and I’m not going to be ashamed of that" – Rihanna
WHATS UP NEXT…
