“If she believed the boardwalk T-shirts, a woman was a ball or chain, someone stupid you’re with, someone to lie to so a man can drink beer. If she believed the television fathers, women were a constant pain, wanting red roses or a nice dinner out. If she learned how to be a girl from songs, it was worse. If she learned from other girls, worse still.
The bass notes of ‘The Choice is Yours’ begin, sounds that had until that moment filled her body with so much energy she thought she’d faint. She walks faster so she won’t have to hear the entry of the tinny, female voices promising, Here we go, yo, here we go, the looping This or that, the try or don’t worry or you can’t intervene, divine statements that beat her around the circle in double time with something extra in her body, for once, abundance. The song has flipped on her—she’s the one left without choices, violated and decepticated, no one running after her, no one calling her back.”
-Marie-Helene Bertino