Feminist Media Literacy 101: The Sexist Media Stunt and the Case for Feminist Media Literacy

Anyone searching for proof that feminist analysis of pop culture is a thriving, necessary, and useful occupation need look no further than Bitch Magazine -- especially its Target Women: The Rise of the Sexist Media Stunt piece from earlier this year. In the piece author Jessica Wakeman looks at a very specific and deliberate type of mass media misogyny and gives it a name: she calls out articles that invent negative, anti-woman, anti-feminist trends as Sexist Media Stunts (SMS).

The SMS comes in many varieties, as Wakeman demonstrates; in addition to discussing the original "Is Feminism Dead?" SMS, she cites articles that question women's leadership capabilities and attack their sexuality, and pretend to be cutting edge in their un-p.c.-ness. The articles come from all kinds of mainstream publications, from women's magazines to national newsmagazines that allegedly have some sort of journalistic credibility.

They're not the only ones, though. Publications and websites on popular music are no strangers to the SMS, as anyone who has ever read Rolling Stone's annual women in rock issue knows. Music magazine SMSs are typically subtle -- rather than outright questioning women's place in the industry, they treat female artists and fans as The Other, continually emphasizing gender over artistic output and consumption. Sometimes they Otherize by being hostile towards female artists, and sometimes they Otherize by being apathetic or negligent towards female artists and fans. Sometimes they Otherize by appearing to embrace female artists, as with the Women in Rock issue, while refusing to acknowledge women as artists regardless of their sex or gender.


Aptly described by Carrie Brownstein as 'a ghetto'.

The most dangerous aspect of these stunts is how subtle and pervasive they are. If you're exposed to nothing but articles that normalize such disrespectful treatment of women musicians, why would you ever treat female artists -- or females in general (ZING!) with any kind of respect?

But then, that's the apparent purpose of all Sexist Media Stunts: to create a climate of hostility, meant to keep women 'in line', and to scare female and female-identified individuals away from speaking up, either in public or in their own lives. It's not 'just a magazine article', or 'just a headline', or 'just a bad review' -- it's a weapon of the patriarchy, and we have to learn to recognize it if we want to find a way to break it or use it against them.

You wanna take it, but you can't have it, revisited: DIY Shows and Safety

I spent this entire weekend thinking about the question I posed to you all last Friday. That is, how do we make ourselves feel safe enough within our communities to speak honestly about show violence? So I tried to figure out what makes me feel safe at a show. I've already written here about the first time I really felt okay at a local show; it's something I'll never forget, and so I went back to that memory.

I felt safe there because there were girls on stage, playing hard, fast, loud hardcore punk songs about being tired of feeling powerless and oppressed as women. I felt safe because I knew one of the vocalists from rock camp, and I knew that she was a cool kid and a dedicated feminist activist. I felt safe because there were lots of other volunteers in the other bands that played that night, and in the audience as well.

I didn't really think that anything dramatic would happen to me at the show, but I did feel like even if something unfortunate did happen, it would not go unnoticed. I trusted that those girls I'd volunteered with were not the types who would look the other way while anyone was getting hurt.

Those girls. Those girls who were already speaking up and demanding to be heard. Who were getting up on stage or dancing and pogoing in the crowd no matter how vulnerable it made them. Who were volunteering at rock camp and other places and encouraging other girls to do the same.

Those girls, and their bravery -- their willingness to speak up, to support those bands, hell, to just be feminist punks in a world that hates both -- was what made me feel safe. It was their willingness to act, to resist, to exist, and to do so vocally.

To say, "How we can make spaces feel safe enough so we can say when we don't feel safe?" doesn't make any sense, I get that now, after intense consideration of the issue. I get that it doesn't work that way. I get that you can't sit around waiting to feel safe, because that will never happen, or sit around trying to come up with what will make you feel that way, being silent until you figure it out. Because your silence won't protect you.

"Your silence will not protect you" is one of my favorite quotes from feminist literature of all time, and one that I say to myself frequently. I've been thinking about it a lot lately because Trophy wife sings those very words in their song "Sister Outsider", which I've been listening to on repeat for the past few weeks. Over the weekend, I managed to find the source of that quote, Audre Lorde's "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action", which is from her collection of essays called Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. I read it, and I found an even better, though less pithy quote:

"We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us."

If we want to feel safer, and if we want our friends, male and female, to feel safer at shows, and within the community at large, this is the work that we need to do. We need to learn to speak not when we are unafraid, but when we are afraid. We need to learn to speak in spite of fear, instead of waiting until whatever threat we perceive has passed.

And to whom should we speak, in spite of this fear? Most of the time, this blog is about asking questions that don't have any clear answers. But I try to provide solutions when I can, so here are some suggestions:

1. Tell all your friends. Talk to the people who care about you if you don't feel good at a show, or after a show, or about shows in general. If you have friends you hang out with at shows, tell them how you feel, and ask them if they ever feel that way. It might make you less alone, and you might come up with some strategies for dealing with show violence.

2. Get confrontational. If you're at a show and someone is doing something that bothers or scares you, just say so. If someone is blocking your view, bumping into you, or doing something else that gets in your personal space, say "Excuse me". If they start doing something that puts you and the other people in the crowd at risk -- moshing violently, crowd surfing, etc -- try to tell that person that's just not cool or right to risk injuring other people. This can be really scary, trust me, I know it is. But it's necessary.

Now when THAT fails: take some suggestions inspired by the Beastie Boys (the good stuff is at 1:20) :


via

3. Figure out who's running the show, literally... and talk to them about it. DIY spaces might be DIY, but they're still set up and run by someone, and that someone should be concerned with safety (if for no other reason than their own personal liability). If you don't feel safe at a show, ask the people who run the space to do something about it. If those people seem unmoved or unconcerned, don't go back to that space, and tell the people you know to avoid going to or booking shows in those spaces.

4. Reach out to the bands. I will admit that I regret not confronting the band that was onstage when my arm got bashed into last Thursday night. I saw them, talking and laughing it up together after their set, while those two redheaded girls who also got hurt sat outside, both shaking slightly. I wish I'd said, "Hey dudes, thanks for saying something when those kids started to get violent. Oh wait -- you didn't say anything. Nevermind."

...okay, so you don't have to be snarky or anything, but asking bands to speak on their audience's behalf is a good way to remind them that they do have the power and opportunity to talk about violence while onstage. Some bands will really think about it; I imagine others will dismiss your concerns or shirk their responsibility. If that happens, again, tell your friends and withdraw your support.

None of this is necessarily easy. I don't think it's easy for anyone, and I also know that some of us are introverts, and that a lot of us don't like or feel good at confrontation and public-type speaking. But this isn't about personality traits: this is about all of us learning to verbalize our needs and protect ourselves, regardless of our preferences. It's something we all need to work on, both for ourselves and our own safety, and for that of our communities.

You wanna take it, but you can't have it: or, some loser fucked up my arm at a show last night.

I was at a show last night in Brooklyn when three guys in the audience started to mosh violently, shoving each other and falling into other people in the crowd. Everyone in the room, male and female, edged back and away from the instigators.

The more space we gave them, the more space they took. Even with half the room to themselves, they managed to bang into other people. One of the moshers collided violently with a pair of red-headed girls who had been watching the band with interest, and who then left the room. Shortly after that one of them bashed into my arm, andhard, and then he fell over. When he stood back up, he stayed near me. He started to drunkenly lean on me, and in an incidence of unmitigated show rage, I shoved his body away with all the strength I could muster. I wanted to say something to him, but I admit that I was afraid of how he would react, so I didn't.

It's not like this is the first time this has ever happened to me. Recently, at a show in a different area of Brooklyn, I was tolerating a set of lackluster pop punk by some generic dude band when the guys in the audience got predictable. They started hoisting each other up and launching each other onto the audience, in an attempt to crowd surf. I watched as the girls at the show, some of whom had been singing along and clearly enjoying the band's performance, retreated from the area, moving to the back to avoid being kicked in the face. Unwilling to put up with any more douchebaggery or bad music, I walked out.

I decided to go downstairs to hang out in front of the building, and in the stairwell I ran into a music blogger acquaintance. She asked me what was going on with the show, and when I told her about the ill-advised crowd surfing, she cut me off, and said "Oh, and you started to feel uncomfortable?"

I don't remember how I responded to her, because all I remember from that moment is being nearly blind with rage.

In case you don't understand why I was enraged, allow me to interpret the subtext of her statement. Her statement, said in a flat, condescending monotone, makes me the subject through her use of "you", and if focuses on my feelings rather than the actions of the people in the room. Her use of the word 'feel' implies that my reaction was emotional, and therefore not rational, and therefore not legitimate. The word 'uncomfortable' trivializes my feelings, it reduces genuine fear for my safety to minor 'discomfort', which she apparently thought I should have just put up with.

In short, "oh, and you started to feel uncomfortable?" translates to, "Oh, you were a stupid little girl who went to a show when you couldn't handle it, and it got you upset." The comment implies that my negative experience at the show was my fault, and it implies that I'm the one who's wrong here for expecting to not have to be afraid at a show, when the jerks who made it unsafe are the ones who are really responsible.

What I should have said to this person is, "No, it didn't make me uncomfortable, it made me angry." Yes, it makes me angry that I'm scared at shows. It makes me angry that I have to watch other girls leave, or move away from the front of the room, because they seem like they're scared, too.

It makes me angry that when guys act that way, I want to ask them to stop, and to be considerate, but that I don't because I'm scared of them hurting me, and I'm scared of all the other people at the show ganging up on me, and I worry that I'll ruin the show for everyone. It makes me angry because I don't want to be that girl who worries about ruining a show when she's knows rationally that none of this is her fault.

It makes me angry that at both of these shows, the bands didn't say anything to try and calm the crowd down. They didn't ask the audience to be considerate. They just let it happen.

It makes me angry that these guys feel entitled to take up all the space at a show; that I've been socialized, as a girl, to constantly think of everyone else's comfort and safety, and that I would thusly never dream of diving into an unsuspecting crowd of singing kids because I wouldn't want to hurt them, while these guys couldn't give less of a fuck.

And it makes me angry that sexists like this blogger don't want to do anything about violence at shows, that they think it's how shows are supposed to be. It makes me angry that that blogger basically said to me, "yes, they are entitled to that dangerous behavior, and you just have to put up with it or stop going to shows."

"Oh, and you got started to feel uncomfortable?" implies that the show, and what happened there, was normal, but I was not. It implies that men's violent behavior is 'natural' -- really, she might as well have shrugged and said "Boys will be boys" -- and that I shouldn't have expected anything different. To act as if such behavior is normal and acceptable is to buy into oppressive gender stereotypes, and perpetuate the sexism that tries to keep girls out of scenes and away from shows.

Violent moshing, crowd surfing and other poor behavior is not normal, 'natural', or acceptable; it's the result of a society telling its men that they are expected to do stupid, dangerous things and let other people worry about the consequences. And if it's not natural, that means that we can change it. We can have safer shows, we can hold people accountable, and we can have a space where we aren't scared. But if we want it, we have to demand it. We have to speak up, myself included -- but in order for that to happen, we have to feel safe enough to speak honestly about these issues.

How do we make that happen? No really, I'm asking all of you.

'Cause a girl can't be tied down: Family Guilt in The Runaways

[WARNING: Major spoilers. Don't read if you haven't yet seen The Runaways and don't want to know what happens.]

Anyone remember that movie about The Runaways? Yeah, it got fairly awful reviews, but I will admit that I went to see it twice, and that I paid both times. Yes, for real. (This is a story for a different post.)



I concede that the poor reviews are not entirely undeserved. The acting is pretty good, and the subjects are so fascinating, but The Runaways has a lot of technical problems, the worst being that the script doesn't quite tell a coherent story. Sure, you see a band getting together, rehearsing, getting on the road, getting signed, getting fucked up and having a lot of sex with various partners, and then breaking up -- but nothing in the movie is really explained. Not even what motivated the band to get together, or what the band accomplished as the first all-girl rock band. It's like there's tons of story there, but director Floria Sigismondi can't be bothered to actually tell it, because she's too busy with her needlessly weird and typically unsubstantive imagery.

The story that does inadvertently get told is a provocative one that is relevant to any girl, woman, or ladyman who has any serious career ambitions (musical or otherwise). Based on a memoir written by original vocalist Cherie Currie, The Runaways ends up being about her struggle to survive tour while wrestling with guilt about leaving her troubled family.


The cover of Neon Angel, Cherie Currie's memoir

In her first scenes in the movie, Cherie seems like a typical California teenager who likes to do atypical things. She quietly defies her classmates and family by cutting her hair into a ragged Ziggy Stardust-type coif, wearing Ziggy-style makeup all over her face, and eventually flipping off her classmates while performing a David Bowie song during her school talent show. What we don't know is that the real Cherie Currie did these things in part because she was struggling to recover from the trauma of being raped by her sister's boyfriend. (According to Currie, this wasn't in the movie because the filmmakers wanted her to 'lose her innocence' later in the movie. Hmmm.)

The first scenes of the movie focus on other things that made Cherie's home life less than satisfying. We see Cherie's neglectful mother, who takes off for Indonesia with her new husband just after Cherie joins The Runaways. We see Cherie's twin sister, who is less than sensitive to Cherie's insecurity about feeling like the 'lesser' twin. We see Cherie's caring, kindly father who is also an alcoholic who is in poor health.

This effectively conveys Cherie's unhappy, stressful existence, but it also singles her out as the 'one with the family issues'. We don't learn anything about the other band member's families, we don't meet any of their mothers or fathers or grandparents or siblings. Drinking and talking by the Hollywood sign, Cherie asks Joan Jett and drummer Sandy West about their parents, and they both kind of shrug. Their parents aren't really present, they don't have curfews, it's not a big thing for them. That's the only mention of the other girls' families.


Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie. She all up in the club in this still.

The screentime given to Cherie's home life comes off as almost intrusive. For example: in a particularly crushing scene, the rest of the band comes to pick Cherie up to go on their first tour just as the family discovers that Mr. Currie is passed out in his car, which is parked in the driveway. The girls gawk and Cherie reluctantly leaves as her sister and grandmother help her father drag his ailing body, which has already sort of fallen out of the car, through the front yard and into the house. Cherie is visibly embarrassed in front of her band, but no one offers any words of support or sympathy.

On tour, Cherie is the one who gets homesick. She's the one who worries about her family, she's the one who calls home and asks how things are there. No one else is shown engaging in any of these perfectly reasonable behaviors. Cherie is also the one who develops the serious drug problem.

The movie suggests, in other little ways, that Cherie is the weak link in The Runaways -- emphasis on 'weak'. On top of being the one with the family and substance abuse issues, Cherie's taste in music gets criticized as too 'middle of the road', and which is another way of saying 'weak'. Cherie is attacked for doing a solo photo spread that verges on pornographic, and is accused of needing attention; in other words, she's too weak to resist the camera. Cherie is the one who can't handle manager Kim Fowley's abusive behavior, the other girls are strong enough to soldier on despite his constant barrage of insults.

When Cherie finally leaves the band, she uses her family, and her father's illness, as her reason for doing so. She tells Joan, "I need to be with my family," which is strange to me because Cherie has so many good reasons to leave the band that have nothing to do with her sick dad. Why doesn't Cherie just say that she's unhappy, or that her body can't handle the constant touring/drugging/drinking/etc anymore? Using her family as an excuse conflates Cherie's problems and 'weakness' with her attachment to her family.


The real Cherie Currie carrying Dakota Fanning! Guess she's stronger than the movie made her out to be.

I don't mind the movie showing Cherie's descent into addiction or inability to deal with the pressure of being on the road or Kim Fowley's traumatizing and exploitative manipulations. Dakota Fanning's poker-faced portrayal comes off as a believable response to her frightening reality, and it makes sense that with little support or adult supervision, Cherie would turn to drugs and sex to deal with her problems. If that's Currie's story, and it seems it is, that's fine.

What irks me is this implication that Cherie's family, and her wanting to be with them, is the cause of her problems. The movie perpetuates the idea that women who focus too much on their families are weak and bound for professional failure, without doing a very good job of explaining all the other factors that impacted Cherie and the rest of the band.

This idea is already pervasive in Western society, especially in the United States, where things like maternity leave and access to childcare are generally seen as crazy feminist demands that male-oriented workplaces shouldn't have to accommodate (forget paternity leave and elder care). Also dominant in our culture is the message that anyone with female parts absolutely must put her family before herself and whatever professional goals or dreams she might have. The contradiction makes it incredibly difficult to juggle your responsibilities, and leaves women in general vulnerable to lots of undeserved criticism from all sectors of society, no matter what type of work you're in.

I like that The Runaways actually shows this struggle, and the way that it comes between women who work together. I guess I just wish that the movie had a happier ending, or at least one in which it doesn't feel like Cherie 'broken home' Currie is supposed to be some sort of cautionary tale, meant to contrast the family-less Joan 'I'm so tough' Jett and her colossal post-Runaways, post-Cherie success.


The real Cherie Currie and Joan Jett, looking more complicated than 'weak' versus 'strong'

Because cautionary tales and depressing stories about girls who were too 'weak' to hack it aren't what we need. Every single girl I know, myself included, is struggling against inescapable social dictums that we don't deserve to be anything but servile to our families, often while also struggling against this irrational guilt we have for wanting more for ourselves. We already know how hard it is, we don't need to be reminded by standard rock bio-pics. What we need, as we finally find our like-minded artist and musician partners, is to see and know that things aren't as simple as Cherie or Joan, and that happier endings are possible for us, if not for Cherie.

Apparently it's Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

It took me a week to decide if I should publish this blog. Now that I've decided to do so, I can only hope that it will have a positive impact.

Recently I logged in at the forlorn networking site known popularly as myspace so I could answer a message from my homegirl Alma. We were trying to make plans to hang out while I was home for Easter.

As anyone who's still on myspace knows, the website now features a facebook-like 'newsfeed' type thing, where your friends statuses (statii?) are listed. It's right in front of you when your login goes through, so it's hard to miss.

That particular day, at the very top of my page, was a status update from a pretty-well respected, but not that well-known West Coast band that I had friended only because my favorite guitarist had joined them after his band broke up. The first line of the status was: "NYC traffic is raping my soul."

The words made my blood burn. Do I have to explain why it made me so angry? Okay, fine, I will: I am sick to fucking DEATH of living in a culture where it's perfectly fine to joke about rape, where rape is a casual metaphor, where people throw around the word rape like it's not a serious crime and a major social problem, not to mention a weapon used to destroy individuals and communities. I am sick of watching as rape victims' credibility is questioned, sick of watching as survivors who come forward are attacked because they don't want to be silenced anymore. I am sick of living in a world that is so goddamn full of rape that I can never get away from it.

So sick of it -- and so infuriated that an allegedly progressive, forward thinking, hip punk artist would say something so gross -- that I decided to say something. Without thinking about it too much, I typed: "rape jokes = not funny, ever" and clicked 'comment'.

If only that were the end of it. The band responded by saying "good thing that wasn't a rape joke." And then some jerk commented "hahahah amazing". At this point I was livid, so I responded that sure, maybe it wasn't exactly a joke, but that like a joke, it made light of rape, which is completely unacceptable. I told the band to check their privilege and recognize how inappropriate their language was.

I'm going to take a moment to explain again, because no matter what these dudes might think, this is important: it is not ever appropriate to to compare something as petty as traffic to being sexually assaulted -- even New York City traffic, which I have a lot of experience with, in case you were wondering. It is not ever okay to make rape seem trivial or insignificant; sexual assault is the ultimate breach and disrespect of a person's boundaries, and it leaves a person's borders open and vulnerable, and that person's sense of self and security all confused and leaked out. Rape destroys.

I'm sure that some people would think that I'm overreacting here. I'm not going to argue with this, or waste my time trying to 'prove' the fact that language is a means of domination and a critical means of cultural shaping and production. If you don't believe me, go read some Bourdieu.

Some people might also think that my response is invalid because it's just an expression, everyone says things like that, blah blah blah. Uh, no. Not everyone says things like that. I do not use the word rape that way. My friends do not use the word rape that way. My classmates and colleagues do not use the word rape that way. My girl gang underground lady punk heroines do not use the word rape that way. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other extended family do not use the word rape that way. The only people who people who talk about sexual assault that way are people who are privileged enough to have never been assaulted.

I'm going to take a second here to make a snarky sidenote, which I feel I can do because a) I haven't named the band and b) I rarely get snarky in this blog. The band in question? Is not really progressive or hip or even artistic. They're just another example of this bullshit Vice-style hipster poseur thing that's been going on for awhile. They pretend to have something to say but they really just spend a lot of time on their hair. They are, as Max Bemis has so perfectly put it, little more than vacuous soldiers of the thrift store Gestapo.

And these jerks have effectively reminded me, through this stupid and sordid little internet-based ordeal, that rape and sexual assault are a problem in our local art and music communities. I'm lucky to say that I've never felt anything but perfectly safe at shows in my hometown, and I've never met anyone who made me feel uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean that assault doesn't happen. We can't afford to pretend that it doesn't happen in our communities, we have to be vocal about this problem and we have to face it, head-on.

But I guess that's the other thing that this band and their unseemly comment reminded me of -- that we can and must speak up about this issue. What I did wasn't that big a deal, it was just a comment on some website...but at the same time, it was still me, saying what I felt, and refusing to be silent. If you feel unsafe or insecure, if you're at a show or in a community space of any kind and someone says or does something that upsets you, you can say something. Even something as simple as, "Hey, that's not cool." It's not about starting fights or creating a negative situation; it's about pointing out when people say or do something that they might not realize is harmful.

It sucks to think that we have to go around policing people's behavior, and it sucks to think that we have to go around telling people that they shouldn't joke about rape (or other types of violence and oppression). People should already know that, right? But not everyone does, so it's our responsibility to say it. It's our responsibility to break the tradition of silence if we want to build communities that are truly safe.

Doing Women's History with Reclaimed Punk Feminist Figures*

Of the seemingly endless list of things in this world that offend me, nothing upsets me in the way that sketchy and rude treatment of Yoko Ono does. I've heard my own BFFs accuse women linked to their favorite male artists of being "Yokos", and even when my friends do it, it makes me really angry.



I.
For those of you who might not know, Yoko Ono is an artist, musician, writer, and activist. Her late husband, John Lennon, was a musician and artist in his own right. (HA, SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) Yoko met John in 1966 at an exhibition of her 'conceptual' art work. According to rock/romance legend, at this time Yoko didn't even know who John was. She allegedly didn't recognize him either when he walked into the gallery space where her work was being shown, or when he inquired further about her work.

Yoko and John were a married couple. They were partners, artistic collaborators, and parents together. But both pop music history and pop culture alike have reduced Yoko Ono to a little more than a band-destroying, genius-distracting, performance -ruining' harpy. She is portrayed as the woman who swept into John Lennon's life, alienated his friends and bandmates from him, and thusly robbed the world of the Beatles' collective brilliance.


The piece that ensnared John Lennon's heart. Read more about it here, here, and here.

II.
There are a few issues with this narrative. Yeah, it's blatantly sexist, in the way that it puts the responsibility for the actions of four grown men on one woman. It's also wrong, and completely ridiculous in the way it ignores the reality of what it means to play in a band with people! The hard truth is that the Beatles broke up because of the Beatles. Ten plus years of being so isolated and so famous is enough to wear down anyone, and enough to make anyone sick of the few people who were there. And from what I understand, John Lennon and Paul McCartney went into this whole thing not really like each other all that much.

Being in a band is kind of like being married, in that it involves a serious commitment, constant proximity for all parties involved, and making a lot of major joint decisions. Like marriage, being in a band is a complex bond that is affected by many factors. Like all aspects of marriage, and bandhood, divorce and band break ups are almost always too complex to blame on a single person or event.


Yoko and John, making a statement. I kind of love this picture.

We need to face this reality about the Beatles and about bands in general not only for the sake of Yoko Ono, but also for activists and artists. We need to face the reality that collaboration is difficult, and that isn't anyone's fault. Working with other people, talking stuff out, hammering out compromises, and learning to respect people's different ideas and put up with their flaws is really hard. Scapegoating a convenient bystander is the easy way out, and doing so obscures the reality of being a musician as well as Yoko Ono's individual accomplishments.

This does double duty for the capitalist rock machine: it effectively marginalizes a powerful and creative woman, and it also feeds the myth of the Rock Star, aka: a skinny white dude who simultaneously sings and fucks his way across the world and then tells us all about it. The Rock Star and his decadent lifestyle help to sell rock music, so the music industry can't have anyone interfering with this illusion. They don't want the truth of being a working artist (and trust me, it is damned hard work if you're doing it right) getting in the way of the stories they spin to keep the masses entertained and buying cds, concert tickets, and merch.

If us punk feminists really want to challenge this exploitative system, we need to recognize these and other industry methods of exploiting and silencing vocal dissenters and people who don't fit the myth. We need to recognize that all forms of rock are inherently capitalist and patriarchal, being the products of a patriarchal, capitalist system -- and that it's a challenge to this system at the same time (or, it's supposed to be). What makes rock a unique musical tradition is that it's both the system and the fuck you to the system. We have to reclaim that paradox, and make it our own if we're going to make space in music for our voices.

III.
Now that we're on the issue of space, let's bring this back to Yoko, as she is the point of this post.

Back when I was in high school I somehow got to talking about Yoko with my music teacher, Mr. Mora (I've mentioned him before). Himself a fan of the Beatles, Mr. Mora, despite being really smart, had apparently bought into the Yoko myth. He spoke at length about Yoko's notorious performance with John, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell on The Rolling Stones Rock'n'Roll Circus.

"She started screaming," Mr. Mora explained, "and you could see the look of disappointment on Eric Clapton's face!" Mr. Mora then proceeded to reenact Eric Clapton's pained expression. (Which, in itself, was priceless, and I wish I had a photo of that to share, but alas, I do not.)

What I do have is a video of this performance. Skip to the end to see Yoko's part and The Face.


Um, WTF is Eric Clapton wearing here? He looks like Ugly Betty...

What's happening in this video? Watch, and try to not see four of the most famous men in rock history. It's a band of four British brahs playing a song about how one of these wealthy, British, rock star, brahs is just so depressed and wants to die. It's four white guys continuing the tradition of Anglo co-optation of rhythm and blues. (In John Lennon's defense, he allegedly admitted to being self-conscious about this.)

Yoko gets on stage and she starts making weird sounds. Why? To disrupt this sausage and wank fest. To make her voice heard. To make herself, a feminist, peace activist, immigrant woman visible against a background of upperclasswhitedudeness. Yoko is doing more than making strange, uncomfortable noises with her voice. She's using the sound of her voice to queer the entire situation.

I wish Mr. Mora were here so I could tell him all of this, and suggest to him that maybe Yoko's awful voice is the butt of a lot of jokes because deep down, people realize that Yoko's disruption was a significant challenge to the pop-rock, cock-rock oriented music industry. Who knows -- maybe John Lennon got that, about both that moment and Yoko herself, and maybe after years of churning out hit after hit and hook after hook and ear-pleasing melody after melody, even he wanted to express something different, and maybe he thought Yoko was the creative partner who could help him do that.

I would like to think that Mr. Mora would respond to these suggestions by saying "Why, I never thought of it that way!" (No one accepted differing opinions as graciously as Mr. Mora.) I would like to think that Mr. Mora would get that Yoko Ono was not some crazy, screaming, scheming, using harbinger of band doom, but an artist, activist, woman, mother and survivor who married into the rock and roll boys club and then made herself heard -- just as any true feminist punk heroine would.

*The ideas in this post are largely influenced by the work of rock sociologist Simon Frith, pioneer of the rock as paradox theory, and rock and gender media analyst Marion Leonard. Check them out, their stuff is tight.

Punk Feminist Cults of Personality, Part 2: Knocking them down

So last week I wrote about how we need to be careful with our feminist punk heroines. I wrote about how we we have to listen to each other, be respectful, and be constructive about keeping our egos and our heroine-worship in check. This week, it's time to turn the knife counterclockwise, and talk about heroine bashing -- or, if you want a not that clever play on words, heroine abuse.

If there's any single person in the punk feminist universe whose persona has grown to mythic proportions, it's Kathleen Hanna. She clearly isn't comfortable with being singled out or treated as Riot Grrrl's sole originator, ideologue, and/or spokesperson, but it doesn't change the fact that Bikini Kill and Le Tigre have been influential, and it doesn't change the fact that Kathleen is a public figure, and that love her or hate her, people tend to pay attention when she speaks.


Kathleen Hanna, back in her Bikini Kill days

I'm going to admit that I fall on the 'love her' side of the debate. And I didn't even know that there was a strong and seemingly pretty righteous 'hate her' faction, within the queer activist community, until I read a particularly nasty comment war attached to an article about Kathleen donating her papers to NYU. The central issue of debate in the comments? Kathleen's credibility as a feminist in the wake of her support of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.

For those who don't know: the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (MWMF) is just what it sounds like: an outdoor concert festival for womyn, no boys allowed. The concert organizers adhere to a strict and unfortunately named 'womyn-born-womyn' policy, meaning that transsexual and transgender individuals are prohibited from attending. The idea behind the festival is to create a safe space for the womyn in attendance, and the claim is that biologically male bodies might negate the 'safety' of the setting.

The more I think about this policy, the more I dislike it. I think it reflects a complete misunderstanding of trans issues and quite possibly of gender in general. I think it makes the organizers and the MWMF seem horribly transphobic, and I agree with those who have protested and boycotted this. But I just can't get on board with this idea that Kathleen Hanna is a transphobe, too, because she performed at this event.

I'm more than willing to admit that I'm biased here, and that part of my struggle with this has to do with the fact that I've been listening to this woman since I was 17. Her work has been a huge part of my adolescence, and I've never done anything but look up to her.


MWMF poster. I'll keep my snarky comments about it to myself.

But there's more to it than that. As an adult, feminist, and student, I'm not convinced that Kathleen Hanna is a transphobe because I simply haven't seen the evidence. Every time I read about what a transphobe she is, the only example of her apparent transphobia is her involvement with the MWMF. There are no quotes about gender or about trans-issues from Kathleen, no excerpts from personal essays or her zines or anything like that. I'm guessing that these quotes exist, but I have yet to see them. And I refuse to tar and feather a person based on a guess that something exists.

I also refuse to label any individual a transphobe for performing at the MWMF if I don't know the entire story of that person's involvement with the event. The organization itself seems questionable, if not utterly bigoted. But I don't know Kathleen's thoughts on the policy or the festival. I don't know why she and Le Tigre chose to perform, and I'm guessing that most of the people judging Kathleen for this don't know the whole story either. Again, I feel as though there must be information out there, that I haven't been able to find, about Kathleen's position on the festival and its trans-excluding policy. Again, I find it impossible to make a decision based on information I haven't looked at myself.

Whether Kathleen is a transphobe or not, I find the treatment of her alleged reputation really disturbing. I find it appalling and frankly offensive as a writer that people are parroting the same story about the MWMF, seemingly without too many facts, and passing it off as either journalism or good blogging. (Here's a hint: it's neither.)

Even worse, it's another example of media tearing down another female public figure. This is an example of institutionalized sexism, a woman-hating bias so deeply ingrained that even female and feminist writers buy into it. (I'm no exception, as anyone who's ever heard me rant about Patti Smith or Chrissie Hynde knows.) Kathleen is unfairly targeted because of her sex as well as her involvement with feminism. You don't see this happening to people like Ian MacKaye or Eddie Vedder. You never would have seen it happen with anyone like Kurt Cobain, or Joe Strummer, or Joey Ramone.

Tearing women down like this feeds into this myth that such public figures, especially feminist leaders, are supposed to be perfect. Guess what -- they aren't. Is transphobia acceptable? No, of course it isn't. But the fact of the matter is that even the most evolved of us feminists have issues and prejudices. Every single one of us is the product of a kyriarchal system. Most of us have some sort of privilege or another, and all of us have some kind of power, that we may or may not exercise effectively.

And no matter how smart or aware or sensitive we are, we're all eventually going to say something stupid. All of your feminist leaders, your punk rock heroines, your favorite radically fierce female artists, are going to fuck up at some point. So prepare yourself.

But not for disappointment. Yes, someday, somewhere, someone you admire might say something that offends you and it might be disappointing or even hurtful -- but that's not what you need to be prepared for. What we, as feminist artists and leaders in our own lives and circles need to prepare for, is how to deal with and learn from these situations.

I think, before we can do anything else, we need to know ourselves, and we need to know what we can tolerate. A voice of reason emerged in that comment war I mentioned earlier, and it said that we have to decide, as individuals, what flaws we can stand in our heroines. Would it bother me if Kathleen Hanna were a transphobe? Yes, it would. But it wouldn't keep me from listening to Bikini Kill, and it wouldn't invalidate her feminist ideas or the impact they've had on me.

But it's not going to be that way for everyone, and we need to learn to live with that. Once we know our own perspective, we have to learn how to be respectful of others'. Does it bum me out that some people detest Kathleen Hanna for her involvement with a single festival? Yeah, it really does. But it's also completely legitimate, and I have to accept that some people don't consider her a model feminist leader.

Ultimately, what we need to learn is that we're all human. The leaders we look up to, the friends and fellow activists we admire, the coming generations for whom we hope to pave the way: we're all human, and we're all imperfect. For that reason, we all deserve both respect and a little slack. Because if we can't treat our leaders that way, well, no one else will, either. And it's time for that to stop.

p.s. For more on MWMF, try Crabigail Adams (a former zinester whose zine I totally used to read, how weird is that?) and/or Pam's House Blend, a generally awesome site.

You know you're working in a patriarchal society when.

"You know you're working in a patriarchal society when the word feminist has a weird connotation. -- Self-proclaimed feminist and actress Ellen Page

It's happened once again: my friend Jackie posted a link to one of my recent posts, only to be met with unnecessary hostility from her guy friends. I don't particularly care to talk about it, but I will because there's some chance that it could be helpful to other feminists who have faced harassment or criticism.

"Criticism" is probably too good a word for the facebook comments my post got. In one of them the commenter related an experience with a 'crazy feminist' he had worked with who had 'prattle[d]' on so much about 'sexist conspiracies' that she'd 'ruined' feminism for him, and thusly couldn't read things like my blog. But then he said that of course he was a feminist 'on principle'. Right.

I chose to respond because I was infuriated by his lack of regard for his so-called friend, which I said in my response. I told him that it's not feminist at all to equate feminism with insanity, paranoia, and lack of logic, to treat his friend so poorly, or to blame a woman for ruining feminism for him. I told him that if he can't be a feminist, he should at least try to have good manners.

His response to this was to delete his comments, send me a very nasty personal message, and then block me. His message called me a narrow-minded fanatic, and said that my blog is 'not compelling -- but what the hell, traffic is traffic.'

I'm going to force myself to admit something: it hurt. Even though I know that there's no reason to take anything this jerk says seriously, it hurt.

I don't like to admit it for a few reasons. First, because if I admit that he got to me, it feels like he wins, even though he clearly loses, having exposed himself as a sexist jackass. Second, it feels like me saying that I'm wrong and that he's right, even though I know that what he did is wrong, and know that I stand by my blog. Finally, I hate to admit because I've been indoctrinated to believe that to be hurt by something like this is a sign of weakness, and weakness is feminine and thus bad.

I also don't like to admit that the entire experience of several days of back and forth with this immature individual has made me feel a bit reticent about blogging. What does it say about me and my convictions if one ignorant wank can affect me so much? Again, it feels like he wins.

But after thinking about it a lot, I've come to the conclusion that it's important to be open about how you feel and challenge the notion that such emotions are shameful, and that it's perfectly acceptable to be hurt. It's acceptable to be scared, because publicly proclaiming feminist ideas comes with the occupational hazard of getting shot down, and maybe you're worried that you can't handle it.

It's depressing that the word 'feminist' always seems to be met with this kind of comment. Once you accept that it's part of what you've signed on for as a feminist writer, performer, activist, or feminist anything, it becomes a question of how to deal with it. And so if you'll indulge me, I'll share how I've coped.

1. Talk about it. Don't be afraid to tell your friends that some sort of sexist comment hurt you. Let them support you and trust it when they agree with you. And if they don't support you, well, find someone who does!

2. Think about it.. Don't be afraid to consider what a comment says, or how it makes you feel. You're entitled to those emotions, and you'll probably learn something from them.

3. Respond -- or don't. Every situation, and every feminist, is different. Sometimes answering your critics is the right thing to do, and sometimes it isn't. A smart, sassy response can feel satisfying, but then so can quietly knowing that you're confident enough to not say anything back. It really depends on what's right for you.

4. And when all else fails: Remember that these comments do mean something. That you're upsetting chauvinists, scaring them with your willingness to call out sexism and your talk of demanding equality from them -- probably means that you're doing something right.

An Open Letter to the Two Jerks Who Were Standing Next to Me the Last Time I Saw Zombie Dogs.

Hey guys,

I was the girl who was shooting death glares and huffy sighs in your direction while I was standing next to you during Zombie Dogs' set at the last Cheeky show EVER. But you probably didn't notice me because you were too busy making annoying comments and in general being seriously disrespectful to the band on stage. I mean really -- If you didn't like or didn't think you were going to like what you were hearing, couldn't you have stepped outside or something?

It's really disappointing to me that it sounds like you couldn't even give Zombie Dogs a chance. Before the band even started playing, I got to hear this exchange between the two of you:

Jerk #1: Dude, I love all-girl bands...
Jerk #2: Oh, well then you'll just LOVE this one.
Jerk #1: Really?
Jerk #2: Uhm, no.

I guess I could just say that this is your loss, but there's something deeper and more disturbing going on here. Jerk #1, maybe you mean well, but your love of all-girl bands is inherently sexist. I appreciate your support of girl bands but that support doesn't mean much if you can't look beyond their gender and focus on what these groups are doing and saying. I hope that you can, and that I've perhaps misjudged you.

Jerk #2, I'm almost certain that if someone were to confront you about this, you'd claim that your dislike of Zombie Dogs' music isn't about gender, but about the music itself. Sure, you like some girl bands, but this one isn't good, or just doesn't work for you.

The problem with this is that this argument doesn't work. Ever. Art is inextricably linked to the artists who create it. When you don't like a song or piece of music, it's at least partly because there's something about the person who made it that you don't like or respect, or maybe that you can't relate to.

Specific to the case of women and female artists: when you say that you don't like them, it isn't necessarily sexist or misogynist. But still, what you're doing is rejecting a woman's point of view. And you can't separate this rejection from the way women's voices have historically been kept out of art, which definitely is the product of institutionalized sexism. You can't separate judging women's music against a male-dominated standard of what makes music 'good', said standard also being a product of institutionalized sexism.

I know that some people don't see it this way. Some really respected female artists, like Patti Smith and PJ Harvey, have said in interviews that their identities as women or females are secondary to their identities as artists, and that the politics of being female don't affect their art. I believe Harvey even said once that she doesn't identify as a feminist because she can't allow politics to interfere with what she creates.

Regardless of their talent, Smith and Harvey are both wrong. The intersection between one's identity, art, and political orientation isn't something that evaporates just because you say so -- whether you're punk's alleged 'high priestess' or some asshole in the audience at a diy punk show. Smith and Harvey claim to be apolitical, without acknowledging that apoliticism is in itself a badge of one's political power and privilege. Smith and Harvey can make what I consider to be damaging statements about artists not having political beliefs because of the politics of color, class, and sexuality.

But, guys, I digress. Your ignorant and disappointing comments were unnecessary, and I wish that you'd kept them to yourselves, or as I said earlier, just taken them outside. The ladies in our scene can't force you to like our music or to pretend to like it. But it is time for us to demand that you respect us as members of the music industry. And, you know, as human beings.

I thrashed extra hard and sang extra loud at the show just for you two!
jamie

A Decade Under the Influence.

The year is almost over and it seems like every music blog, website, and magazine I look at is sizing up the last ten years' worth of music. It's to the point where I've been wondering if I should be writing a daily post on the best songs and artists of the decade.

But I'm not inclined to look back, or to look at these best of lists being compiled by the informative and provocative NPR, the obnoxious Pitchfork, and dinosaur bones like Rolling Stone and Spin. There are three main reasons for this.

1. None of the bands I really care about at this particular moment will be mentioned.

2. The journalism itself will be disappointingly masculinist.

3. The lack of attention to women artists will be infuriating.

The second issue is probably the hardest one for me to deal with, and also the one that requires a bit of explanation. The masculine/male-oriented standard for most writing is objectivity. The men who run our society pretend to not have agendas -- i.e., not be 'subjective' -- in order to obscure their privilege and discredit varying view points from marginalized groups.

I feel like I see this constantly in literature on music. So much of music criticism seems focused on comparisons, name-dropping, and the general reification of the rock hierarchy. The goal is to declare whether something is 'good' or bad, rather than to look at what music means or says about our time and place.

Which doesn't make sense to me, because people don't need music critics to tell them what music is 'good' or bad or worth listening to. What we need is well-read and well-listened individuals to help us understand the context of the music we listen to, i.e., how and where it was produced, what earlier work influenced, what the artist hoped to accomplish, and the work's place in culture.

Oddly enough, I've been trying to approach writing about music in this way for about the last ten years. Towards the end of my time in high school, my favorite teacher and conductor, Mr. Mora, asked me if I knew what I wanted to do when I finished college. I told him, "I was thinking about being a music critic. But the thing is, I don't want to have to put musicians down or write about music I don't like, I don't want to be some snob, I just like writing about music. I like describing it, and I like explaining it."

Mr. Mora was my conductor and teacher, but he was also my equivalent of the Helpful Record Store Guy. He loved popular and classical music, and could discuss both with ease and patience. He was never arrogant or condescending. He was a Christian in the true sense of the word; no hatespeech or words of intolerance ever came out of his mouth. He was a former hippie who didn't trust newspapers and wanted to write an orchestral suite for Lee Harvey Oswald, because the man "didn't get a fair shake, or a trial, even!" This probably makes him sound like a nut, but Mr. Mora was kind of perfect.

He's why I try to keep negativity out of my writing, why I'm able to appreciate music, why I'm able to write about it at all. A fellow music writer once wrote to me that maybe there are less women in music journalism because women don't learn to write technically and 'critically' about music. Thanks to Mr. Mora, I learned to think and speak critically -- as in, socially or culturally critically -- in a safe space. I learned my music history, but from a person who genuinely loved music. I didn't learn from jerky, entitled young hipsters who sublimate their insecurities through hostile record and show reviews.

Is the hostility, the insecurity, the mudslinging, and the generally sloppy writing what discourages women from going into music journalism, or the music industry in general? Or is it what keeps women from advancing in the industry? If so, then forget the last ten years; in the next ten years, what I want to see is change. I want us to demand better, more inclusive music journalism.

In the meantime, all I can do with these sexist wanks and berks at places like pitchfork and brooklynvegan is tell them what Mr. Mora said to me a decade ago: no one ever erected a statue of a critic, kid.

Musicians speak out against violence and sexism

In the past month, I've been to three musical performances, and at each one, I got to witness performers taking a stand against sexual violence, sexist language, and hate crimes. Allow me to take a moment to publicly commend each artist and band for doing so:

1) On September 18, I saw Zombie Dogs and Slingshot Dakota play at the Glass Door in Brooklyn. I was surprised when drummer Tom Patterson interrupted Slingshot Dakota's set to speak at length about sexual assault within Brooklyn's punk and underground music 'scene'/community. When I say at length, I mean at length. He spoke for at least ten minutes about how important it is to address these issues, not only for individual survivors, but also for the health and well-being of the entire community. I'd never seen anything like it before at a show, and it was kind of amazing. Props to Tom for saying what so many people can't or won't.

2) On October 9 I was lucky enough to see The Gossip at Terminal 5. In the middle of the band's set, there was some kind of skefuffle up in the front, and from where I was standing on the side, I couldn't really see or hear what was going on. Vocalist Beth Ditto interrupted the show in order to take charge of the situation and mediate. After a few minutes of quiet, wherein Beth spoke to some people in the audience, out of nowhere we all heard her say, "Why would you call her a cunt? I wouldn't call you a faggot, I don't know you!"

It seems that there was some friction and shoving between some guys at the show and the girls who were standing behind them. Beth took a few minutes to explain why it is never appropriate to call a woman a cunt, "unless it's like your best friend, and then sometimes it's funny." It became a running theme for the rest of the evening, as Beth reminded the audience every few songs how un-friendly and un-neighborly namecalling is, not to mention hurtful.

3) On October 17 I went to see Death First and Zombie Dogs at ABC No Rio in Manhattan. On the very same day, a march and rally were scheduled in the College Point area of Queens, where Jack Price, an openly gay man, was recently harassed and then brutally beaten.

Death First vocalist Jessy took some time to talk about the march and rally. She briefly explained what had happened, and why the march and rally had been organized. And she told the audience that Death First might not have any songs specifically about gay bashing, but that she thinks it's really important to approach everything she does "with non-violence".

In case it isn't clear, I dig this trend. I like when the musicians I see and listen to are brave enough to speak out against injustice, and I like when the music I listen to has a political and/or social message. Is there really a point to music that doesn't contain a message of some sort?

I didn't experience revelations or epiphanies or anything like that at any of these events. I'm already aware of these issues of sexism, violence, and, gay bashing, and I already denounce the perpetrators of these crimes, as well as the systems that support and perpetuate these crimes and that allow the perpetrators to go unpunished.

But it still struck me what a huge difference musicians can make when they talk about these issues. If these moments were meaningful to me, what could they have meant to other people in the audience? What could it mean for a kid who's been assaulted or harassed, but can't articulate what she or he has experienced? What could it mean for a young person who wants to talk about these problems, doesn't know how or where to start?

As Tom Patterson of Slingshot Dakota said, the only way to deal with these problems is to talk about them and keep talking about them. If musicians are able to start these conversations and help to keep them going, well, that could only be a good thing for those of us who are struggling every day against violence, sexism, and other types of oppression and discrimination.

"It's going to take a lot of things", or: A response to some random naysayery

I'm lucky enough to have a few really cool friends who read and support my blog. A few weeks ago my dear friend Jackie went so far as to post a link to my post on Rock Camp songs on her facebook wall. I was so grateful and flattered, but the warm fuzzies I was feeling were tarnished by the following comment from one of her facebook friends:

"I think this is great, but we're not going to dismantle this dumb system with rock songs. We will by forming DIY community banks."

It was the classic 'progressive guy' condescension. Just in case you don't speak Sexism, I'll translate for you: First, you have the pat on the head ('I think this is great...'). Then you have the brush off ('we're not going to dismantle this dumb system with rock songs'). Finally, you get the solution ('DIY community banks'?) In other words, this is cute and all sweetie, but music and art don't really 'count' -- only male-identified arenas like socioeconomic and political institutions count.

I was upset by this comment, at first because of its sexist undertone, and then later because I was forced to consider what it said. What if that guy is right? I've spent the last few weeds wondering, what if rock songs won't dismantle the system? What if what I'm talking about is totally stupid, and totally irrelevant, and he's right to be condescending?

Here's the thing though: this guy is NOT right. To start with, he's wrong to argue that rock songs won't bring down The System because I never said they would. I'm idealistic about music and art, but I'm not delusional. I know that songs don't have the power to stop armies in their tracks, or pass legislation, or regulate financial institutions.

But music is a powerful and unique means of uniting people. Music is a unique medium for the transmission of new ideas to a large audience. And a good, pithy pop song breaks those ideas down into manageable, memorable pieces, using straightforward and familiar language that sticks in your mind, and that becomes part of your consciousness.


I listened to the Beatles a lot as a kid, I like to think that their pro-peace, pro-love ideas became a part of my consciousness early on.

When music opens up your mind like that, and gets you thinking about bigger ideas, and maybe even gets you talking with your friends about these ideas and how they make you feel -- that's when music has the power to change things. Music does have the ability to stimulate critical thought, and critical thought can lead to resistance.


This is one of my new favorites -- Swedish punk upstarts Refused knew how to bring the classic punk resistance to shitty/mindless popular music!

(If you don't believe me, just ask all the Latin American dictators of the '70s who banned pop music, assassinated outspoken musicians, and sent their military police to rock concerts with tear gas and grenades. They seemed pretty worried that music about human rights would get the young people to resist the military government.)


This guy, Victor Jara, was tortured, beaten, and killed by the Chilean military because he sang about political activism and human rights.

More to the point of this blog, popular music has become bigger than just songs and albums. Song itself can transmit positive ideas, and it can also transmit negative ideas. And since music is not just the music itself, but also the performers, their politics, their style of dress, and the way they present themselves, popular music also transmits ideas about men, women, sex and gender -- whether it means to or not. I've seen this for myself. I've experienced it for myself, I've seen it with my friends, I've seen it with the campers at Rock Camp.


An all time favorite: my beloved Sleater-Kinney singing in feminist protest of the corporate war machine

I've always assumed that most of us are sort of familiar with this phenomenon, and that most of us can appreciate what a positive influence music can have on your day-to-day life. (Don't a lot of us go through a phase during our teenage years where we just want to shut ourselves up in our rooms with our favorite records, and where we only want to talk to friends who are doing the same thing? Or maybe that was just me....)

I guess maybe my critic didn't go through this phase, and if that's the case, I probably can't say anything that will convince him of the power of music. All I can say to a person like him is, man, you must be listening to the wrong stuff.

This post is dedicated to Jackie, for her support, and to all of my friends who keep encouraging me to write, and to keep speaking up.

Such a tees.

Yesterday I engaged in an activity that for me is unprecedented in its overt 'femmey'-ness: I went around the corner to the local salon for a little mani/pedi.

While waiting for a beautician to start working on my nails, I paged absent-mindedly through some celebrity gossip magazine. I didn't quite recognize a lot of the people in the photos, and so the headlines about scandals involving diet plans, adultery, and adoptions didn't really move me.

But here's what got my attention: photos of Kristen Stewart at Comic Con, wearing a Minor Threat t-shirt. Minor Threat?! I incredulously wondered to myself. Really? I experienced a split second of elation, yes -- Kristen Stewart listens to Minor Threat, FUCK YES! -- which gave way to judgment, cyncism, and scorn. Like she even knows who Minor Threat is. Chyeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.


Kristen Stewart, looking t-u-f-f tough in her Minor Threat tee, with some guys. (Who are those random dudes? Fans or something?)


And then I regretted it. Because it occurred to me that whenever I see a young, pretty girl, especially an actress, sporting a t-shirt of any decent band, I assume that she doesn't know the band. Why do I do that? I don't think anyone ever questions it when a guy wears a band shirt. Why the double standard?

The better question might be, why do we wear band t-shirts? And maybe the right place to start is at home: I myself have quite the collection of band t-shirts. I like t-shirts, they're comfortable, and they're a great way to support a band. I try to only buy shirts at actual shows, because that way the proceeds go directly to the artist. T-shirts are also an important means of signaling your musical tastes, not only to others, but for yourself. Your band t-shirt is a declaration of your appreciation for a band, and also of your choice to wear a t-shirt rather than, say, a three piece suit, or a tube top.

Band shirts seem neutral, but are in fact very gendered (and also classed) articles of clothing. The fair-skinned, heterosexual, overtly feminine, middle class standards of womanhood and girlhood, do not involve band t-shirts. Such women and girls are rarely presented in such casual clothing -- they are expected to wear dresses, skirts, blouses, and other garments with decorative buttons and lace and ruffles. Women are their professional/office and formal attire, just as a younger women are their trendy, not-really formal, but not really relaxed, 'misses' section outfits.

And if you do see a girl in a band t-shirt, particularly as represented in film or television, she's sleeping, doing housework (like Jennifer Garner in Juno pictured below), depressed, or 'punk'.


Heaven beside you: Jennifer Garner paints nurseries in her (husbands?) band shirts!

But that's it, right there -- such a t-shirt often signals that a girl is punk, or at the very least, 'different'. Anyone remember Peyton on the early seasons of One Tree Hill? Who didn't fall in love with her and her devotion to her favorite bands, and her numerous band t-shirts? (I maintain that in real life, Peyton's taste would actually be much better, and much edgier, but I guess it's the point and not the vernacular.) Peyton is 'the rebel' on that program, as directly contrasted with Brooke, her stylish bff, who never wore any kind of t-shirt, though I wished she would.

In 'real life', band t-shirts seem to mean the same thing: a girl or young woman who wears band shirts on a regular basis, is bucking gender conventions, by wearing an article that is designed for men. And if she's taken the time to modify the t-shirt, tailoring, altering, or even just cutting it and transforming its dude silhouette into a garment that is more flattering to her figure, even better.

Or, you hope, anyways. The paradox is that as an article of clothing, t-shirts are inherently superficial. A girl in a band t-shirt could be a total radical, or she could just be wearing t-shirt. Women are assumed to be superficial, and because it's been feminized, fashion is assumed to be superficial as well. No one bothers to consider that women's choices of clothing, from t-shirts and jeans to ballgowns, are deliberately made, based on the individual's grasp on how clothing is produced, where it comes from, and what it means socially. Women and girls' sartorial behavior is automatically written off as irrelevant and frivolous.

So in the same spirit of bucking convention, I'm going to refrain from making assumptions about Kristen Stewart and her clothes and musical tastes. Because wearing band t-shirts is meaningful to me, and it's just one way of declaring that women are part of bands, shows, and the music industry, too. I have to believe this, despite the stereotypes and generalizations. I have to have faith, based on my own experience, that not every girl in a band t-shirt is just wearing something she found in her boyfriend's dresser drawer.

Rock Camp Run Down, 2009: There's a first time for everything

I'm happy to report, dear readers, that I'm recovered from an exhausting, but super-successful week at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls! In five days, my fellow volunteers and I helped 80 girls to form 16 ass-kicking bands, write 16 smart, funny, and often poignant songs, learn about body image, self-defense, music history, and music merchandising, and make an untold number of shirts, buttons, and zines.

As for myself, in addition to teaching guitar and helping our campers to use and understand their gear, I'm happy to report that I spoke to a number of volunteers, off the record of course, about their bands and projects. Many of our volunteers are working musicians and artists, and last week I got to hear the latest news on what their bands are up to, and about their experiences as musicians.

In many of these conversations the younger lady volunteers admitted to never having played with other female musicians before. It seems that none of them have played exclusively with men by choice -- all of the volunteers I spoke to about this told me that they'd never found other girls to play with. For many new volunteers, last week was their first real experience with a community of women musicians. My guitar co-teacher, Rebecca, for example, told us that she signed up to volunteer with Rock Camp because she'd never played with other women.

Rebecca is a songwriting and guitar performance student at a certain very prestigious conservatory. She's in what she told us was the biggest popular music program in the world, an apparently unique course of study offered by no other school of music. She is frequently the only female in her classes. When some of us guitar instructors pressed her to tell us more, she told us that she's witnessed and experienced all sorts of discrimination and condescension. She told us that she took on a guitar performance major in part because songwriting students are looked down on. Songwriting is assumed to be easy, while performance studies, which involve rigorous training in technique, is assumed to be one of the most difficult majors. Rebecca described these assumptions as 'totally gendered'.

I found this totally depressing. The upside is that based on the sexism she's encountered, Rebecca was able to facilitate what turned out to be a great in-class discussion on this topic with our students. We asked them to talk about being female guitarists and working with other female musicians. Like the volunteers, most of our guitar students hadn't played with other girls before coming to Rock Camp. Some of our students told us that they'd struggled to find teachers who didn't make them feel uncomfortable, and that they had issues with music groups at their middle and high schools: some of them afraid to audition because there weren't any other girls in the group, some of them were already in a school-based group but felt isolated and lonely in them.

Rebecca and I couldn't do much to actually help the girls with these issues. The best we could do was share our experiences, and encourage them to find solutions to these problems, to keep searching for the right teacher, to keep working until they feel confident enough to audition for groups, to keep looking for girls to play with and to support and keep in touch with each other as they get older. Rebecca talked about her program, and I admitted to the campers that I never really took guitar lessons, because I was too scared to even look for one that didn't intimidate or condescend to me. I told them that I was lucky to have played with other girls in my high school and college orchestras, and that I was fortunate enough to find a true mentor in my high school conductor.

Since that discussion, I find myself wondering about these issues. I find myself wondering why these problems existed ten years ago, when I was in grade school, and why they still exist. How can we change things? How can we start to make music and music instruction less sexist? Is this even possible? The more I thought about it, the less possible it seemed, and the more discouraged I felt.

Cut to the volunteer afterparty, held on Saturday in a beautiful Brooklyn backyard. I am exhausted from my week at camp and my brain is tired from mulling over rock's gender issues. I'm sitting at a picnic table, watching as my fellow volunteers chat, joke, sing, and tell stories about this camp session, and I'm sort of eavesdropping, even though this is totally wrong. I overhear my co-teacher talking to one of the other volunteers, and they're talking about playing jazz and about popular music studies, and they're talking about the sexism they've encountered in their music programs at school, and at clubs and bars and music stores. I overhear them planning to get together at some point and form an all-girl jazz combo.

At that moment, I stopped feeling discouraged. I no longer felt like it would impossible to come up with a way to deal with sexism in music, because I knew that just by being at camp, I was already dealing with it. I looked at my fellow volunteers, I thought about all the ladies I'd talked to that week, and all the loose plans we'd made to play together, and all the bands that had been formed because of Rock Camp, and that would be formed there in the future. This, I thought to myself, is why we do what we do at camp. And I didn't feel discouraged anymore, I just felt proud.

That's Not What I Heard! The Truth About the Gossip

*****It's Gossip, Folks! Week here at Rock and the Single Girl! In celebration of the release The Gossip's fourth full length album and major label debut, Music for Men, for the next 6 days R&tSG will feature musings, music, photos, and video of the acclaimed PDX-by-way-of-Arkansas trio, (The) Gossip. Already a fan? Turn up the volume and get ready to dance. No idea who they are? Turn up the volume anyway, and get ready to be converted, because The Gossip is just that kind of band.*****



I got hooked on The Gossip the first time I saw them live, back in the summer of 2000. My high school best friend had their new record, and she was going to see them; when she invited me to go with her I reluctantly agreed. "What if I don't like them?" I fretted, almost falling off my seat as the 7 train turned by Shea Stadium. "Don't worry", my friend said, expertly maintaining her balance as the subway car rattled and shook. "Trust me, you'll like them."

And of course, that night I fell in love with them -- I fell in love with their lead singer, Beth Ditto, because she was the loudest and most unself-conscious woman I'd ever seen on a stage, and more than that I fell in love with their music, with the sound of gospel-style vocals about having sex with girls over messy garage-style punk, a violent crashing mix of distorted, Southern-sounding guitars and low-tuned Riot Grrrl percussion. Watch this video from back then so you can see for yourself what I'm talking about:



I'd always been so sure that The Gossip are a really good band. It wasn't just that I happened to like them; they were actually making quality music and giving quality, energetic performances. So I was completely shocked when my friend Jess sent me this link, along with the commentary, "I don't know why I read comments, but this whole post annoyed the crap out of me": http://perezhilton.com/2009-06-12-alex-blimes-is-a-douche

Perez Hilton's love of the Gossip is nothing new, he's been talking them up for a long time, right? But what about Alex Bilmes' criticisms? I thought the The Gossip were beloved throughout the UK! And what about the comments? "Um Perez, nobody likes the Gossip but you"? "He's right, they suck"? "Who the fuck are these people"? I didn't realize just how much Gossip hate there is out there.

Then there are the comments about Beth Ditto's appearance. It's one thing to not like The Gossip's music, or even to hate their sound. It's another thing to be put off by Beth's opinions or the way she expresses them. It is something else entirely to bash the band because of Beth's appearance, or more to the point, her size. There is palpable contempt for Beth's so-called 'morbid obesity'.

There's not much I can say about those comments -- I don't think I need to say that it's wrong and sad that people are so shallow, in addition to being sexist and fatphobic. But I will take on the quotes from Bilmes' article. As a journalist and critic (rather than a longtime fan), I can say this about Bilmes: he's wrong.

I don't see how the fashion industry's recent interest in Ditto could possibly be an attempt to appease "feminazis" -- I don't think Bilmes understands that such a massive and lucrative industry doesn't have to appease anyone, least of all feminists. I'm suspicious of the fashion industry, yes, and I'll admit that I don't entirely understand why Beth Ditto is suddenly so chummy with Kate Moss and Karl Lagerfeld, but Lagerfeld is a powerful designer. Homeslice is not hanging out with Beth because he's worried or scared, okay? Okay.

Bilmes is equally off the mark in calling Beth a poor role model for young women. Is he foolish enough to think that young girls are going to go out and eat everything in sight and try to make themselves larger so that they'll look like her? (And if they do -- so fucking what?) As a woman myself, I can tell you that it's more complicated than that. Beth is an inspiration not necessarily to be larger, or to be 'unhealthy'; she's an inspiration to love yourself and your body even when the mainstream tells you that you shouldn't, whether it's because of boniness, flab, acne, stretch marks, 'bad' hair, or whatever 'flaws' you might have.

And finally: Bilmes calls The Gossip "a deeply average, resolutely unsuccessful rock band." I read this and thought "....is this true? Are they average?" As I said above, it had never occurred to me that they were anything but quality.

And I stand by this assessment. There is no one in the world making music like The Gossip -- not ten years ago when they were playing their inimitable Southern dance punk, and not now as they write and record songs that can best be described as disco punk. The Gossip are innovators, that's just the way it is. The Gossip is comprised of three very skilled musicians and songwriters, capable of evolving and experimenting with new sounds and styles. And I know, that's not really a big deal, any decent band should be able to evolve and experiment, but that's just it -- not every band out there is capable of that. I don't understand how Bilmes can call The Gossip "average".

Regardless of what Bilmes says, regardless of Perez Hilton's or even my opinion, regardless of what Hilton's commenters say, the truth about The Gossip is just this: they kick ass, on many different levels.

official website
Gossip on myspace