grrrlvirus:

two summers ago i was chilling with my abusive boyfriend of the time when rhianna’s video for ‘what’s my name?’ came on. she was rocking the bright red hair (like mine) at the time. my boyfriend started in with his emotionally abusive behaviour, telling me “now there’s a girl i could really be with”, letting me know all the ways he thought rihanna was better than me, more of a ‘good girl’ and less of a ‘slut’, painting a fantasy about who he wanted rihanna to be and who he wanted me to be.

i had an epiphany in that moment. my self esteem was really low, i’d been putting up with his abuse for awhile and it was wearing me down. he was offering me an easy scapegoat for my feelings. i could hate rihanna. i could take all my insecurity and sadness, all my unexpresed rage against my boyfriend and i could put it on rihanna. i could let out all my internalized misogyny in an attack on another woman. i could hate her. it would be an easy ‘solution’ and it’s what many women do. we live in a world that promotes women hating other women, that thrives off jealousy and competition. my boyfriend was betting on me taking the bait but i didn’t. i made another choice. i reminded myself that i like rihnna, that i have been a fan of her her music, her style and her attitude since i got my hands on ‘good girls gone bad’. i reminded myself that my boyfriend’s fantasy about what rihanna meant as a ‘girl he could really get with’ said more about him than about rihanna as a person or me as a person. i did not hate her. i decided to like her. a lot. and her music ended up being a light for me as i worked my way out of that abusive relationship and the grief process that followed….

http://clementinecannibal.com/2012/01/01/so-hard-reasons-i-love-rihanna/

(via herzschrittmacher)