Empowering Women - Lady Gaga

Every month I am highlighting an empowering woman. This month it is:

LADY GAGA

Lady Gaga wasn’t always understood when she first rose to musical power. Her outfits were crazy and her performances and videos were controversial. I always liked her, though, because I appreciated her creativity and what she was doing.

Remember the legendary meat dress?

“If we don’t stand up for what we believe in, and if we don’t fight for our rights pretty soon, we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones. And, I’m not a piece of meat.”

Then there’s her first MTV VMA performance for Paparazzi. At the end, she’s lifted into the air, bleeding and convulsing. 

“I just knew I had to bleed to death for four minutes on TV…I wanted to say something about how the celebrity sort of has this inevitable demise that we love to watch. But are we killing them or are they killing themselves?”

In 2011, she debuted her song “Born This Way,” a song about love and equality. From the beginning, she fought for LGBT rights. She wrote “Born This Way" in ten minutes and recorded it around the world on her tour bus. This song isn’t just for the LBGT community, though, but for people of all races.

 What about the video and that egg she journeyed in down the red carpet:

“…birthing a race within the race of already existing cultures of humanity—that bears no prejudice and no judgement.”

She started the Born This Way Foundation to help teens struggling with depression and to feel comfortable in their skin.

In recent years, she gained considerable recognition for her tribute to Julie Andrews, her National Anthem performance at Super Bowl 50, her tribute to David Bowie, and her role as the Countess in American Horror Story: Hotel, for which she won an Emmy.

This year she did the Halftime Show for Super Bowl 51, and in my opinion it was the best Halftime Show ever. She opened it by singing "This Land is Your Land" while a fleet of drones created the American flag behind her. And it was neat to see the dance moves from her music videos come back to the stage. 

At the 2016 Oscars, she performed “Till it Happens to You,” her song dedicated to victims of sexual abuse. Gaga was sexually assaulted when she young....

“I didn’t tell anyone for years because I didn’t tell myself for years. And my soul was burnt out until it was gone. And then you have to admit you were in pain, and that you died in a way, but you are in control to bring it back, and there are people in the world who’ll help you.”