Feminist Music: Preaching From the Choir

Off Our Backs, Jul/Aug 2005 by Chapman, Annsley

It is a bleak, bleak day in the land of feminist journalism when the writer of an article about women's music prefaces her insights with "So I was reading an article on www.Match.com about ten essential things single girls must own." I will preface my preface with three details: a) I stumbled upon the article in an innocent search for something else entirely and was not, in fact, seeking advice from an online dating service, b) my story has a point that carries the overarching theme of my article and c) I have no qualms about abusing my position as an oob intern by calling out various websites on my shit list. And www.Match.com is on my shit list.

So I was reading an article on www.Match.com about the ten essential things single girls must own. Having rolled my eyes through Items #1 and #2 (the predictable pair of killer heels and the slightly-less predictable but nevertheless obnoxious Picture of You Looking Sexy), I came across Item #3, and thus to the point of my story. According to columnist Amy Spencer, if a man happens upon your CD collection only to discover that you listen to chick flick soundtracks and the Indigo Girls, you're as good as dead, or worse, a spinster. Spencer recommends (ahem) an Eminem CD to temper all that embarrassing estrogen, adding "you have no idea how relieved he'll be. It shows you have an open mind and aren't easily offended."'

To which I respond, "B-, please."2

I take my clit rock seriously, because clit rock takes women seriously. Along with feminist literature, journalism, and art, feminist music has shouldered the hope of women unwilling to ignore the rampant inequalities of contemporary society. The women of Le Tigre, the Butchies, Sleater-Kinney, Erykah Badu, Magdalen Hsu-Li, Ani DiFranco and their contemporaries accompany us in a lonely world that still relegates women's issues to the back burner, reducing feminists to ungrateful misfits who Never Had It So Good. These musicians have voiced the raw energy of women who are angry, creative, resourceful, and uncompromising in their demands for a better world with better people in it.

If you're reading oob, you know what's up in the world outside this magazine. You don't need to watch a marathon of MTVs Newly weds to see that most Americans like their mainstream female musicians young, beautiful, and preferably stupid. No one's paying these women to take themselves seriously, and for the most part, we don't.

As for the righteous babes who do take themselves seriously, society and its vehicles are less than forgiving. Women artists who don't play by the rules (and even those who do) often get a head pat from their mainstream peers and a one-way ticket to Chick Music-ville so the boys playing real music can get back to business. Artists who sing openly about women's experiences circulate amongst a small, savvy feminist fan base, though no one thinks twice about the millions of female fans who support male artists. The male experience wields just as much normative power in the music industry as it does in nearly every other aspect of American culture. It is worth noting that www.Match.corn's counterpart article "10 Things Ever Single Guy Must Own," the writer did not deign to meddle with the men's CD collections. Why should they?

And while blaming the music industry for the downfall of feministkind's Billboard sales has a certain catharsis, let's skip the red herring and aim for the mothership. Far away from Chick Music-ville in said consumer-driven universe, feminist music faces enormous hostility from anyone who buys into the analogy of boy:girl [four dots above] cool:sissy [four dots above] universal:esoteric. Thanks to feminist movements of yore, women have infiltrated certain previously male-dominated fields with increasing success, yet femininity itself (whatever that means) has miles to go before people quit using the word "girly" as an insult. Artists and bands who refuse to hide their feminist politics find themselves shuffled into the Chick Music pile, never to be heard from again. This predicament has thwarted feminism's reach in mainstream music that desperately needs a healthy dose of political activism from musicians other than Eminem.

And what a long road ahead of us. We are a culture that now cherishes our adventurous, aggressive tomboys but balks at boys who cry, nurture, and listen to chick flick soundtracks. People will gender anything from cars (Forbes snidely dubbed Vin Deisel's car in the film 2 Fast 2 Furious as "way too cute and girly to be a male protagonist's choice" ) to alcoholic beverages (Sex on the Beach wears pink, Guinness wears blue). Far from mere neutral assessments of which sex prefers which car or cocktail-though statistically, men do buy Dodge Rams at a much higher frequency than women-gender labels provide covert ways to rank masculine objects over feminine ones in an age when people can no longer openly rank men over women.

I could end my article here, tsk-ing Match.com (they'll never see this) and all ye of mainstream culture (who subscribe to oobl), but my hypocrisy might strike me dead in my tracks. Until last month I was but a closet feminist music fan, acceding to the myth that non-feminists would contract wet leprosy if I were to expose them to women's music. In the company of friends and family unfamiliar with or even hostile to feminism, I hoarded my clit rock away, opting for less controversial music, stuff that wouldn't corner me into answering sardonic questions about whether or not I shave my legs. Furthermore, I know that listening to Le Tigre earmarks me as another goddamn bra-burning man-hater, and while I can think of much worse stereotypes to fall into, I am deeply averse to feeling like a one-dimensional archetype for something as multifaceted as feminism.