A tremendous fallacy within our sphere is the belief that female art is entirely worthless. This is not true! Okay, it's sometimes true- yes, many such cases- but it's not always true. While they aren't typically brilliant thinkers (outside of a handful of female autists) nor are they courageous- and the best art takes courage- women certainly are emotional.

Female art, similar to all forms of female expression, is written in the language of emotion, and in that sense, can be interesting and powerful- however, it must be decoded correctly.

Take Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know"- a fantastic example of what was coming out of the halcyon days of Mid-1990's alt-rock.... but can we take what she's saying at face value?

My friends, certainly not!

Taking the surface narrative of the song at face value would have you believe her ex was a total dick who betrayed his idyllic girlfriend:

And every time you speak her name

Does she know how you told me

You'd hold me until you died

'Til you died, but you're still alive

WOW, what a liar! At least she'd have you think so- with what she's literally saying. However, digging a little deeper reveals a value conflict between her and "Mr. Duplicity" (I'm rolling my eyes, Alanis) that would ultimately nullify any promises her Chad made her:

I want you to know, that I am happy for you

I wish nothing but the best for you both

An older version of me

Is she perverted like me?

Would she go down on you in a theater?

Does she speak eloquently

And would she have your baby?

I'm sure she'd make a really excellent mother

And thus reveals the genuine problem with their relationship- anything else in the song is noise and whining.

Alanis taunts him with her perversions, asking if the new woman would go down on him "in a theater," when what he values more than kinky sex is a woman who is ready to move forward into motherhood- anything else to this man is irrelevant. And that's all that needs to be said about the relationship's end. Alanis reveals herself to be a modern woman with a preference for abortion ("the cross I bear that you gave to me" seems to reference an aborted pregnancy), while he was a TRAD CHAD and wanted children. End of story.

To be honest here, this layered narrative was most likely intentional on the part of the artist- like a bank robber dying to be caught- but serves as a wonderful example of understanding female communication, or, the emotional language of women. Alanis leaves the attentive listener enough breadcrumbs figure out the real story, the very rational cold reality of her breakup, but couches it in her own emotional vomit.

Understand this- while women have a fuzzy relationship with the truth (another topic for another time), they aren't always necessarily lying; women have a fuzzy relationship with reality. Women cannot distinguish actual reality from their own emotional interpretation of reality, and this is always present in their language and communication. This is not necessarily fiendish or manipulative (although, of course, sometimes it is)- this is female nature. Reality may be adjacent to their emotional ranting, it can usually be found as though you were solving a riddle or conducting an investigation- through clues, observations, and innuendos.

Play this game at home, with any woman you talk to- as they come to terms with their emotions through ranting and raving, read between the lines and you can usually summarize the reality what they're saying in a single sentence or two.

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