“I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats…I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all 4 tires…”–from Carrie Underwood’s hit single “Before He Cheats.”
One of the ways the double standard about domestic violence manifests itself in our popular culture is the female revenge motif. Women who are wronged (which, to some, means all women) exact revenge in a way which, were the genders reversed, would be widely condemned.
One example is country singer Carrie Underwood’s hit single “Before He Cheats”, in which Underwood (pictured holding her Louisville slugger) brags about destroying her cheating boyfriend’s car. Destroying an intimate partner’s personal property is often considered to be domestic violence (at least when a man does it), though it certainly is a much smaller matter than a physical assault on the victim.
According to Wikipedia, the video debuted at #1 on GACTV, was #1 on CMT’s Top Twenty Countdown five weeks in a row, and was named best video of 2006 by CMT. In April of this year, the video “swept the CMT Music Awards, winning three categories: Video of the Year, Female Video of the Year, and Director of the Year. Underwood made history by being the first female to win Video of the Year.”
There has been no discernable protest or criticism of the song or the video. I find it hard to believe that a country song and a video approving of a violent, jealous man destroying his girlfriend’s car would get on the air for five minutes.
To watch the video, click here. The full lyrics to the song are reprinted below.
Before He Cheats
Right now he’s probably slow dancing with a bleach blonde tramp, and she’s probably getting frisky… right now, he’s probably buying her some fruity little drink cause she can’t
shoot whiskey…
Right now, he’s probably up behind her with a pool-stick, showing her how to shoot a combo…
And he don’t know…
That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats…I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all 4 tires…
Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.
Right now, she’s probably up singing some white-trash version of Shania karaoke..
Right now, she’s probably saying “I’m drunk” and he’s a thinking that he’s gonna get lucky,
Right now, he’s probably dabbing on 3 dollars worth of that bathroom polo
And he don’t know…
That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats, I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all 4 tires…
Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.
I might’ve saved a little trouble for the next girl, Cause the next time that he cheats…
Oh, you know it won’t be on me!
Ohh… not on me…
Cause I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats…I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all 4 tires…
Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.
[Note: If you or someone you love is being abused, the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women provides crisis intervention and support services to victims of domestic violence and their families.]
To read more on these issues, visit Glenn Sacks’ blog at www.GlennSacks.com .
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8 users commented in " Carrie Underwood’s ‘Before He Cheats’–When a Woman Commits Domestic Violence, It’s Just Good Revenge "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackWhilst not condoning the behaviour of the woman trashing a car in the song above - I would like to point out a major difference between her damaging his car and when the male engages in the same behaviour.
Generally, when a male engages in such behaviour - it is with the intent of using Power and Control tactics on her. He is attempting to control her by making her afraid of him.
In the song you cited above, it appears that she is acting from frustration and anger. Her behaviour is still inappropriate and would be viewed as such in any court of law - however it is NOT domestic violence.
I would submit that a more appropriate course of action might be to consider all your options. Personally, I would be packing my bags and moving on.
It’s a song. It is not meant to be taken seriously. She did not really key a guys car and she has said herself that she does not condone it. Country music is full of songs like this, but this is the only one anyone decided to criticize. Have you heard of a song called “Kerosene” by Miranda Lambert? look up the the lyrics for that song. It’s all about burning her boyfriend’s house down. That’s arsen. The Dixie Chicks have a song about poisoning a cheating husband. I have never heard any fuss over either of these songs. My point? You are one of the few people idiotic enough to take this song seriously. Just because no one has complained about how morally wrong it is to key someone’s car just because their boyfriend cheated on them, does not mean they condone it. You need to learn what kind of things should be taken seriously and what shouldn’t be taken seriously. This is something that shouldn’t be taken seriously, because it is simply just a song.
Sounds like an anthem for psycho bitches everywhere to me. To simply say it’s just a song is wrong. Can you apply that same brush-off to, say, rap music that degrades women? I hope not. I haven’t seen the video, only heard the song repeatedly on the radio, so the lyric that strikes me is the consistent use of the world ‘probably,’ which to me implies that she really doesn’t even know if the guy is cheating with certainty. And what is cheating? I suppose it varies depending on who you talk to, but as I interpret these lyrics, the guy hasn’t done anything but flirt. And that justifies vandalism? Catch him with his plug in the socket. Now that’s cheating. Until then, this is just an anthem for psycho bitches everywhere.
Don’t you love it when women backpedal when they’re hoist on their own petard? They scream like harpies when violence against women is portrayed in song, but when the tables are turned, they brush it off. Does that sound like hypocrisy to you?
You’ve got to be kidding! There are plenty of songs (raps, mostly) about women being beaten and even killed that are played over and over and over on the radio. I want to know where all the men are when those songs (and movies) are being praised and earning fabulous sums- it says a lot that all you have to prove that women are abusive is a song where she scratches us his car. That really doesn’t equate to all the women who are beaten and physically abused, you know.
None of the rap songs condoning violence against women or their property nor Carrie Underwear’s song condoning the same against men send the correct message to adults or children. I wonder how many reported cases exist since the publication of Carrie’s song in which women exacted their revenge on a cheating man by doing what the song says and as a direct result the man retaliated by violently beating them? Violence only causes further violence, and any song that encourages violence should carry a parental warning and not be allowed to be played during airtime when children will typically listening just as TV shows with graphic nature are. Furthermore, Carrie’s song certainly shouldn’t have been rewarded for it’s message by receiving the Country Music Record of the year. Prodigy’s Rap song, “Smack My B!tch Up” received condemnation while Carrie’s got a Grammy - yes a bit of a double standard is at work here.
The stats speak for themselves; far more women (and children) are harmed, injured, or killed by their male partners.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is living somewhere in Wonderland or Oz.
Evan King-Macskasy has a valid point. The songs sung by men are not the same as those sung by women. The attitudes and themes are completely different.
A short while ago, “Before He Cheats” made an intrusion on my neck of the woods - adult contemporary music. I have seen the video, and I have three comments, the third of which is a suggestion:
1) The video is backwards. The subject should not have taken the actions that she did (trashing her boyfriend’s car) until she had solid proof that he was cheating - not before.
2) Glenn Sacks has it right about the double standard matter - the video is just another in a long line of examples where it is depicted as okay for a woman to commit a wrong when she is perceived as “having been wronged”, but not okay for a man to do so in the same situation. Take your pick: “40 Days and 40 Nights” (woman commits rape to make ex-boyfriend lose a Lenten bet to abstain from sex - and gets away with it; if a man did that’ he’d go to jail), “The Last Seduction (woman runs off with drug money, frames man for killing her husband), “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” (super-powered female abuses her powers to ruin the life of a normal man who did not feel the same way about her as she did about him - and gets away with it - if a super-powered male had done this to a normal woman in a movie, that movie would have been boycotted). Sure, there are examples of men getting away with things (Chad from “In the Company of Men” getting away with seducing and then dumping a deaf woman (with help from another man - his boss, Howard), and then getting his boss’s job), but these appear to be more the exception than the rule.
3) I would suggest that Carrie Underwood would do a song where she takes the same actions against a boyfriend for cheating on her as she does in “Before He Cheats” - except this time, she loses face when it is discovered no cheating was going on at all. It could certainly help to balance things out, in my own humble opinion.
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