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On Again! On Again! – at Torrington, Sheila Thackray said that it was about her. She said that without a shred of doubt, and with apparent pleasure. My impression was always that the song was written with affection as well as humour, and this was confirmed for me when its ‘target’ accepted it in that spirit. We should do the same – indeed, I feel people must struggle very hard to do otherwise.
As for the original question, the title of this thread: No. I am almost Jake’s contemporary. He wrote in his time and rape was just not glorifiable back then. Anyone who feels in 2006 that the songs unintentionally glorify rape is trying too hard, and you would need to be off your head to suggest that Jake purposefully set out to glorify rape.
Questioning the sentiments of The Widow of Brid is surely deliberately provocative and not worth rising to. If you have a talent for finding what is not there it would be better spent on a Nostradamus board.
Make up your own minds, but if you feel there is a choice then opt for the simplest explanation, and give Jake the benefit of any doubt you may have. Jake was not free of warts but there is nothing to be gained by searching for imaginary ones.
You must remember that when Jake was writing these songs (and believe me there are still a few pockets of similar thinking even today) the male-run-establishment regarded rape as something
rogueish and laddish, even implied women were ‘panting for it’.Judges trying rape cases accused girls in short skirts of ‘asking for it’ and it was this attitude that prevented a lot of rape cases from coming to court.
It wasn’t until the rise of feminism, that it was universally accepted that rape was entirely distinct from the kind of "take me I’m yours" games played in the bedroom, and was actually an act of violence.
But, and this is the point, very few people (except those who’d been raped of course, and they kept quiet) thought like that when Jake was writing.
As another writer explained, the accepted mores of the time have to be allowed for when the world moves on. I’m surprised this even had to be explained, but then I’m an old woman and maybe I expect too much.
It’s good to hear from you again, Sister Josephine, and so much to the point. Your awareness of social and cultural history is much greater than mine – I tend to see 40 years of history as something more like 40 months, and not to be conscious of change!
Thank goodness for old women, say I, especially those with a useful retrospective perspective – (how’s that for a nifty phrase!).
I never use two or three words when a couple of thousand will easily do, so here I am going on again.
Another example of how Jake was a man of his time (and nowt wrong with that, he can’t be blamed) is in the commentaries he gives about the feminist group who went out an pinched bottoms (presumably they put them back though).
He says they did it "to show they were equal to men". Of course they didn’t but in those days, no man could even begin to believe that goosing was disrespectful or sexually harrassing, it was a bit of fun.
Only it wasn’t to women. But women weren’t taken seriously by blokes, so they tried to *show* how offensive this violation of their fundamental liberties was, by giving as good (or bad) as they got
And it worked too, because blokes didn’t like it when they were pinched and fondled.
But even though on the surface Jake may seem crass, it was how blokes thought in those days (and many still do). My own Dad used to smack the bottom of female acquaintences and expect it to be taken in good part.
One day, we’ll look back at the way we now assume that everyone should be thin, and we’ll wonder how we could have promoted anything so stupid – but right now, we’re all for it.
You can’t look back into the past through the eyes of the present.
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