Too Much Labour: A Modern Revolution Against the Patriarchy

I have loved listening to music since I was young. It fills me with vigor and emotions, and is key in helping me write, complete assignments, study, and focus. Though as I've gotten older and had the chance to study poetry in-depth, I realized that a lot of a song's true meaning is often hidden or underlooked. For this post specifically, I am going to focus on one specific song popular on social media.

The song "Labour" by Paris Paloma (2024) has been circling around TikTok for the last few months, featuring clips from the music video (linked below), her performance on Colbert's Late Show, and the audio itself. It has 79 million views on YouTube and over 500,000 uses on TikTok. To me, the song strikes power into me, especially with the hightening crescendo from beginning to end. When I first heard it, I never thought much about the lyrics until I kept seeing posts saying how it is the new feminist anthem specifically with the chorus, which says:

"All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid

Nymph, then a virgin, nurse, then a servant

Just an appendage, live to attend him

So that he never lifts a finger

24/7 baby machine

So he can live out his picket-fence dreams

It's not an act of love if you make her

You make me do too much labour."

Sellnow states, "Music functions rhetorically by representing actual life experiences and emotions as an illusion of life based on the artist's perspective. In this way, music conveys an argument about how we ought to or ought not to believe or behave" (pp. 173). I'm not saying in any way that this song is an illusion of life, rather that it demonstrates the artist's perspective of unbalanced and abusive relationships in general.

This song incorporates more orchestral instruments such as woodwinds, strings, and glass slides with a dark rhythmic tone that ultimately sounds Renaissance-like. In her music video, Paloma utilizes a Renaissance-styled storyline, portraying a wife in ragged clothes serving dinner to her husband and lighting the candles, attempting to make him feel comfortable and taken care of. What seems like an act of love is dismissed by the husband, causing the wife to spiral internally. The tone, mood, and style of the song shows that this patriarchal abuse is not new, but that it has been happening for centuries--and still is. Paloma is just raising awareness about it. (Sellnow defines both of these factors as actual time and congruency).

The music video also takes on a radical feminist view because the wife is portrayed as a servant, someone inferior to her husband who is supposed to be her equal. However, at the end of the music video, the wife takes things into her own hands and eats messily, ruining the table in front of her husband as an act of defiance. While this is an act of defiance in the music video, the lyrics themselves act as an argument against the patriarchy. 

Women are tired and emotionally/mentally drained of carrying everything on their shoulders when they have a partner who is supposed to help carry the load. A lot of men still believe that women are their mothers and that they have to subject themselves to being used how ever they (the men) desire. Yet, the surgance of this song on social media, empowers women to fight against and escape their abusers/lazy partners. In fact, there were quite a few comments on the music video itself where women said they felt strong enough to escape from their abuser, because of this song. Even men are commenting on how they are sick of the patiarchy, which leads me to say this: I do not believe this song is criticizing men as a whole, but those who still follow through with traditional feminist stereotypes (women being seen in the home, nuturing children, not working, etc.). 

I hope that these stereotypes will finally leave for good.

Anyways, that being said, my question to you the reader is: are there any other songs you have seen that have sparked a revolution or change of some sort?