#457: Sinéad O’Connor, 'I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got'
Ensign/Chrysalis, 1990
I am tempted to write a long discourse on how Sinéad O’Connor is shrouded in controversy tainted by public displays of mental breakdowns, poorly planned political statements (ahem, SNL 1992), and weird tweets of racist undertones.
I sort of want to say something about how the oppression she experienced in her woman-ness makes her innocent of all charges.
But I cannot reconcile this version of feminism with my ever-increasing plea for accountability to all people and their behavior.
I want to live in a world where I still love her and cry in my bed listening to “Three Babies,” while I hold the context of her religious trauma, overtly sexist reactions by the public, and also the inability of society at large to respond to mental health disorders run rampant in real-time. I also want to say, “Sinéad messed up a lot within in this context and did hurt people.”
There’s this thing inside me where I want to say, ‘I LOVE HER AND SHE MUST BE PROTECTED FROM HER OWN BEHAVIOR.’ If she was a man, I definitely would not feel this way. But I want to protect this woman because I know what it feels like to be gaslit, blamed, manipulated and abused. GAH but my feminism cannot bleed into excusing women just because they are women.
Yes, I might be projecting the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial a bit here. I am seeing too many “believe women” headlines when it is clear that Amber Heard has a history as an abuser. It’s undermining the #metoo movement, a movement that gave me oxygen finally after multiple assaults on my body during college.
Where do we draw the line in a world crushed under the very heavy concrete mausoleums of patriarchy in believing women and holding them accountable?
I don’t know the deep confines of Sinéad O’Connor’s heart. I just know that she sang “Nothing Compares 2 U” and I also know that she tore a picture of the pope in half during an SNL appearance, from which she was banned because that particular demonstration was not okay’d by the producers.
O’Connor, also named Shuhada Sadaqat after her conversion to Islam, grew up in Ireland during the 1960s and 70s. She was abused at the hands of her mother and at the hands of the local Catholic diocese who locked her away when she was 15 years old for shoplifting.
Her quest for motherhood was complicated. Mental instability made things difficult. She had an abortion* but was able to carry four other children to term. One of her sons died by suicide early this year, at which point O’Connor started tweeting about taking her own life.
She has offended almost every social group at one time or another causing real damage. She apologizes each time but somehow still keeps getting it wrong in the public eye.
This album is her second and was the marking of her international fame and the beginning of her life as an international controversy.
The third song on the album, “Three Babies” makes me feel seen and heard in a way that no other song has in a very long time. It has become my closest confidant. This song is my heartbeat and one of my most fervent prayers.
I am stuck in this moment of celebrating her humanity in the midst of her challenges. I also want to acknowledge her messiness without justifying it simply because of her womanhood, and the oppression associated.
I do not want to love anyone out of patriarchal guilt. I do not want to believe anyone out of patriarchal guilt.
But I think, no matter what, I must love her. Accountability is not my job. Mine is simply to love. Not because she is a woman, not because she has been a victim nor because she has been oppressed. I must love her because she lived.
Because she still lives.
I just finished reading Toni Morrison’s, Song of Solomon. There is a character named Hagar who is suffering from jealousy, rage, depression, and disillusionment. The reader spends their time hoping for her demise so the protagonist can be free from her vengeful jealousy.
Finally, she dies.
The funeral is lonely and sad. There is no glorious mourning, no real lamentation from the community. Just a series of empty rites and empty seats.
Finally, Pilate, her grandmother and figure of morality, yells loudly, “And she was loved.”
I hope that in regards to myself, someone will say, “And she was loved.” Not because I have gone through hardship but because I existed. That should be enough.
*(btw, reproductive health is a human right)*
Top songs: Three Babies, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Black Boys on Mopeds, Nothing Compares 2 U, Last Day of Our Acquaintance