All over social media, women and female-presenting individuals are creating videos to the song “Labour” by Paris Paloma, sharing their stories of sexual assault, advocacy for reproductive healthcare, and stories of forgotten female historical figures who were excluded because of their gender. While many find this song to be empowering, the melody is filled with an anger that speaks to centuries of objectification, being forced into stereotypes and enduring abuse. Specifically, this song tells the story of a woman breaking free from the narrative that love and abuse go hand in hand.

Who tends the orchards? Who fixes up the gables?

Emotional torture from the head of your high table

Who fetches the water from the rocky mountain spring?

And walk back down again to feel your words

And their sharp sting

And I’m getting fucking tired

This stanza highlights domestic labour roles that women have been forced into for centuries: household maintenance and caregiving. While women’s inclusion in the workforce has become normalized in certain parts of the world, working women are still taking on the brunt of domestic duties, which are wrongly seen as “womanly duties.” Paris’s lyrics speak to how this work is thankless and, when not invisible, harshly criticized. Similar themes are recognized throughout the song, as in the stanza below.

Apologies from my tongue, and never yours

Busy lapping from flowing cup and stabbing with your fork

I know you’re a smart man (I know you’re a smart man)

And weaponise

The false incompetence, it’s dominance under a guise

This stanza explores the concept of weaponized incompetence, a manipulative tactic used to coerce another person into completing a task on your behalf, having pretended that you are too incompetent to do it yourself. While weaponized incompetence is feigned weakness, the lyrics suggest that it is a quiet form of power used to keep women within these gendered spheres of household and marital labour. The lyric, “Apologies from my tongue and never yours,” refers to how speaking up for yourself can be turned against you by an abuser; somehow, you are always in the wrong, and to suggest otherwise is unacceptable.

If we had a daughter, I’d watch and could not save her

The emotional torture from the head of your high table

She’d do what you taught her

She’d meet the same cruel fate

So now I’ve gotta run, so I can undo this mistake

At least I’ve gotta try

This stanza has such a profound effect on me as a listener. The lyrics refer to the cycle of abuse faced by many families that experienced domestic violence. While deciding to leave a toxic relationship can be extremely difficult, actually doing so is infinitely harder, especially with a child to care for. Unfortunately, some people feel that they have no choice but to stay in these abusive relationships, despite knowing that their fate will eventually befall their children. Paloma’s allusion to the possibility of her not being able to escape weighs heavily on the listener, and you can hear the desperation in her voice as she acknowledges that, at the very least, she will try. 

While listening to this song, I encourage you to spend time with the bridge, which highlights the roles society forces women into. Messages about when, where, and how women should use their bodies, as well as who should make the decisions about their bodies, are perpetuated through all forms of media, including media targeted toward children. As a society, we must end the cycle of violence by not passing these ideas on to our children through normalization. We need to do better. As Paris Paloma says, at least we need to try.

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

Contributing author: Sophie Wagner

Image Credit:

Feature Image: Photo by James Wakibia