Does every female rock band have to go on feminism rants?

sorry gareth, you know i still gots love.)

Or, actually, please no.

actually, i think it'd be fuckin hilarious if James A Hanna posted here.

http://www.beatboxbetty.com/photogallery/photogallery2/photogallery2/images/Mary-Kate-&-Ashley-Olsen.jpg

I have no idea what country you live in, but if you can't quite comprehend that there are severe differences in the way the females (of EVERY occupation and CERTAINLY in the US) are treated than I can unapologeticaly state that you are a complete fucking moron.

*realization creeps in...*

-- webcrack (signon29@h...), December 9th, 2002.

No. I would never say a thing like that, because if girls werent allowed to play guitar, the world would not have the Pixies; who are my favorite band.

This isnt about weather it's true or not, however. Its about weather they obsess about it. I think I agree that the question is asked too often and that contributes, but for some bands its the main focus of the songwritting, which is just retarded.

In that case...

it's about 17 degrees farenheit, clear, expecting a low of around 9 degrees tonight.
Tomorrow should be mostly clear with a high of about 28 degrees.

All these chicks like Avril and Xtina and the Sugababes and especially Kim Gordon with their "feminism" really bore the shit out of me.

"hey, Kool Thing, come here, sit down
there's something I go to ask you.
I just wanna know, what are you gonna do for me?
I mean, are you gonna liberate us girls
from male white corporate oppression?
tell it like it is!
huh?
yeah!
don't be shy
word up!"

Sonic Youth, "Kool Thing"

(oh yes, and David, fuck off and die already).

i immediately thought of this thread

how tough it must be to be a right winger, knowing your innate superiority but being passed over by, like, girls and stuff!

or...what sterling said

Geeta - my new favourite poster.

1 large eggplant
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
2 tomatoes, chopped finely
4 green chillies, chopped finely
1 cup cooked green peas
1 1/2 tsp dhania-jeera ( cumin-corainder) powder
1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp amchoor(mango powder)
Salt to taste
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp cooking oil

Method
Rub 1/2 tsp oil on the eggplant and bake in an oven till
the skin shrinks and liquid starts oozing out of the
vegetable.
This will take around 30-45 minutes at 400 deg F.
Take it out of the oven and peel it.
Mash the baigan and add the salt to it.

Heat the remaining oil and add the chopped onion.
Fry till the onions turns translucent.
Add the green chillies and the tomatoes and fry till the
mixture becomes homogeneous.
Now add all the spices and the sugar and fry for a minute.
Add the baigan and mix well.
Now add the peas and fry for a couple of minutes.
Add the chopped coriander leaves and some water to get
a thick consistency.Mix well.
Heat through.
Serve when hot with plain rice/paratha.

Pulled from one of the introduce yourselves threads. David, with questions like this we don't need to see you tell us your age, because it really shows. I'm not saying that to be mean, because I was definitely there myself, but least you think that's even an excuse, your comments on this thread are neither particularly insightful or amusing. If you really seriously want to discuss this:

1) give specific examples of what you mean (songs, concert snippets, whatever)
2) explain why these things are wrong or at the very least why they bug the hell out of you
3) be prepared to defend yourself

Then maybe you'd get answers here that weren't just flip "fuck you, idiot" or "*sigh*" kind of responses. I've seen some of your commentary on other threads and I know that you're capable of actual discussion. Use that talent here.

Also, when Sterling said "Why do black people keep talking about race all the time? Slavery was 150 years ago. Get the hell over it!" I laughed, because I actually agree with that.

The feminism thing summarized everything I was trying to say.

Also, you dont have to be white to be fed up with whiney minorities.

HINT: IM A MINORITY. It's guessing time! Let the fun begin!

You've already assumed Im republican (HA), I'd like to see what else you can come up with!

Despite my recent vainglorious victory, I shall not touch this one. Not even with a 39 and 1/2 foot pole.

(hstencil: being funny doesn't mean she also doesn't mean what she's saying -- she just means it differently, y'know?)

You have stomach cancer?

But it hasn't, obviously, or else people on this thread wouldn't think you are so clueless. In fact, what have you said besides

"Frankly, a LARGE majority of female rock bands, in interviews at least, never quit obsessing over HOW HARD IT IS FOR FEMALES IN ROCK EVEN THOUGH IT ACTUALLY ISNT."

I looked over the thread because I thought maybe I missed some justification for or defense of your statement, or some examples of this supposed phenomenon. I couldn't find any. Don't you think you should at least try to explain why you feel this is the case? Or maybe you are unable to do so?

She used to work there and she went out with Nick Kent.

David without examples, explanation, what you're saying does imply a certain prejudice. Are you down on minority whining in general? Because that takes out a lot of music. Once you've established that making music about being female, black, gay, working class, with a disability, a misunderstood loner, a religious believer from satanist through to high Catholic, a cross dresser, a drug taker, the young, the beautiful, the ugly, the mad and the in love, is, technically, the music of minority whinging then you really have very little to listen to.

Im not going to give out my age, because if I do, in all of my threads from this point on people will say "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MUSIC BLAH BLAH BLAH."

This is patently untrue; people only use the "you're too young to know about these things!" argument when they're desperate and it's obvious to everyone else that you're right. Mostly they will just call you a "rockcrit wunderkind" and be real impressed by your average-to-mediocre taste in music because they don't expect a teenager to know about Ray Price or Funkadelic.

(Unless, of course, you're rubbish and post mysogynistic garbage, in which case you're gonna get shot down anyway, so you might as well reveal your age to make the other folks your age look good.)

Re: the Chrissie Hynde list- I always thought it was 50% ironic and 50% pragmatic. Plus, "it's not fuck me, it's fuck you!" is just a great motto in any situation.

I'll sympathize with DA in that I wish more people weren't so obsessed with viewing things through their gender or race. However, at least in the media, usually its the journalists who keep asking them about it. That doesn't excuse groups like Sleater-Kinney and LeTigre for the hateful statements they've made that would get someone lynched if they were genderflipped.

Well it is a gripe he could probably identify with.

Also, Anthony, do you have any particular thing about Sleater-Kinney or Le Tigre song or statement in mind, or are you talking out of ignorance here? (I suspect the latter)

taking sides: being too-young-to-know-anything-so-i'll-fling-bullshit-and-learn-by-what-sticks vs. being an overly precious/precocious autodidact teenager who demands constant reassurance of his precious/precocious intellect

d00d, I never get reassurance on ILX, no matter how much I beg for it!

It's odd that may age came up, considering I didn't even mention in this thread. And it's kind of senseless for me to not give out my age because I know people will automatically judge me on it; and then have people just assume Im very young, so they can judge me on it.

One person said I was misogynist, I do not agree with that at all. It's like Anthony said, "I wish more people weren't so obsessed with viewing things through their gender or race." Besides, Im equally biased towards every group.

On the passage by Chrissie Hynde - I'd like to hear what's truely wrong with it. For the most part, everything she said followed perfect logic.

"I like how everything Ive said has been ignored"
But it hasn't, obviously, or else people on this thread wouldn't think you are so clueless. In fact, what have you said besides
Sorry, I mean misconstrued. That and large portions of what I have said have been ignored.

"Frankly, a LARGE majority of female rock bands, in interviews at least, never quit obsessing over HOW HARD IT IS FOR FEMALES IN ROCK EVEN THOUGH IT ACTUALLY ISNT."

I looked over the thread because I thought maybe I missed some justification for or defense of your statement, or some examples of this supposed phenomenon. I couldn't find any. Don't you think you should at least try to explain why you feel this is the case? Or maybe you are unable to do so?

Yes, I should have provided examples. My posting of this thread was spawned by the Le Tigre thread, and the Avril Lavigne interview in Rolling Stone (although I should probably void what she says, due to the fact that's she's not human and all...)

-- webcrack (signon29@h...), December 9th, 2002.
Thanks for talking reasonably in stead of just jumping on the "David = Leader of the He-Man Woman Haters Club"

First off the first S-K album (self-titled) has several songs about the horrors of fellatio, and yet I never heard anybody give them the same shit the Descendents got for the line "I don't wanna smell your muff!" Also, the embarassing Women In Rock issue of RS had Carrie announcing that Sleater-Kinney could never save rock because the iconic guitar figure is always a guy. A)Ignoring the fact that at one time all governors were men (thank god everbody didn't say THAT fight was futile) and B)Do they not realize how many fans and scribes think they're doing that to this day?

"Feminist Sweepstakes" OPENS with a song declaring that they write rollerskating jams "for the queens and the fags." And as I said on the LeTigre thread, how would Kathleen Hanna feel about straight guys running down the street naked screaming "we recruit!" and "macho fury!"

Hate shouldn't be responded to with hate, and these groups have had no issue with doing exactly what they'd find repulsive coming from men. And seeing a thread where someone is told to fucking die 99 times in response to a question that has some validity tells me that people aren't bothered by all forms of belligerence and hate, just the kind by groups not like them.

I just wish everyone would stop talking about this stuff. I mean there is a good deal of blame on journos for always going SHE'S A CHICK! SHE DOES MUSIC! but it's not like the rest of the world is entirely blameless.

That's why I don't entirely see the problem with most of what Chrissie Hynde said on that little thing up there - I mean, I don't see the reason to constantly harp about how hard it is to be a girl cos I don't think it's something anyone should think about. Just do yr thang and fuck everyone else if they have a problem with you being chiXor. If a journalist asks, tell 'em to fuck off already with it.

Whatever, I mean no one would be sticking up for, say, a boyband who says it's very hard to be a boy in a field of pop music so flooded with Britneys and Christinas because that would be stupid. So just ignore it. There are better things to talk about than what it feels like for a girl.

I take it when Sterling left he gave you the bug up his ass to keep it warm, Alex.

I mean I don't particularly care who the band hates, that's not my point, my point is that people would never have sympathy for the other side and are increasingly caring less about other minorities in music so why give a shit about this to the point of this thread?

I fail to understand why it matters if someone is anything in relation to whether or not their music is good.

And yeah, maybe if people would stop talking about WOMEN IN RAWK all the time then maybe it'd be easier, but that's the journos job, to say stupid things to get people to read.

And Katk can totally rip on the status quo. Aside from "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" I don't think they did anything for me. I'd just like to see LeTigre imply that maybe criticism of their and other works done by female and gay artists might not be driven by oppresiveness or fear (you should try it too, Alex). Or I'd like to see them talk about something else over an entire album.

I received my own sexism sensitivity training from a militant feminist who is almost as fervent about rock as I am, and I know that to a lesser extent such enthusiasm is shared by many active women's liberationists, so I don't believe indifference causes the silence. On the contrary, many women are explicitly perplexed by the paradox of their attraction to a music that is not only male chauvinist--almost everything is--but even, to call upon a useful distinction, male supremacist. I think a similar paradox plagues the women's movement as a whole.

To charge that the typical feminist wants to "be like a man" is a canard. She wants only the freedom to explore what it is to be a woman. But in order to gain such freedom she is obliged to gather power, and in the process of gathering power she accrues "masculine" characteristics. Without some minimal share of "male" autonomy/activism/energy (these may seem like perfectly unexceptionable qualities, but they aren't when, as is so often the case, they block their equally unexceptionable opposites: communality/responsiveness/equanimity), she would never be able to assert herself in the first place. And it is with self-assertiveness, counted so "unfeminine" by many men (and women), that her struggle must begin. Of course, that is not where it's supposed to end. In the most productive pattern of self-liberation the new feminist both declares her independence--from her man, her job, her life training--and discovers her solidarity--with other women.

A like pattern of release and new community emerges from a political analysis of rock and roll. Musically, rock has always been an affirmation of energy--aggressive where pop was acquiescent and folk reflective--and it has always instilled in its audience a penchant for activity, beginning, I suppose, with foot-tapping and ending, I suppose, with state-smashing. The independence this activity implies and reifies has also led to solidarity, mostly generational, with music the great adhesive. In fact, insofar as the new feminism results from a certain style of heightened political awareness that began with the civil-rights movement, it can be said to have some of its roots in the adolescent rebellion symbolized by rock and roll. This is a far-fetched rationalization, and there is no need to take it as more than a curiosity, but it does help resolve the paradox. Women like rock not only because it has human value but also because some of that human value is, or has been, good for them as women.

I assume that by now I have lost most of those who begin this column every time in the hope that I will be writing about rock and roll. I have lost them, dudes and chicks both. After all, they're in it for the sex in the first place. The metaphor around which rock's liberating energy collects itself--the content of that energy--is sexual. Since we grew up in an antisexual society, we have tended to embrace that giant breakthrough with the total passion we think it deserves. But because rock draws upon traditional folk attitudes dating back (at least) to African tribal dances and Scottish ballads--or, more directly, blues and country music--its sexual energy, like all formalized sexual energy I know about, is also sexist energy. It posits the classic pattern of man the pursuer/actor and woman the pursued/acted-upon. The subculture that is identified with rock--and the more precise the identification, the more this is true--has instituted this pattern with a vengeance that is almost literal, sloughing off all the genteel post-Victorian camouflage so many of us grew up with and getting back to basics. For the hard-core rock freak, a chick's place is not only in the home but between the sheets, and a feminist is more fucked up than fucked over and better off just plain fucked.

The sexist message can be discerned in one form or another in just about every rock song that concerns men and women, but lyrics, except when they are clearly audible and blatant, are the least of it. It is in the theater of rock, both in the media and in live performance, that sexism really prevails. Don't even think about groupies--just name female rock musicians. The idea, of course, is ridiculous. Among concert-calibre groups, the total is two drummers--Maureen Tucker, of the Velvet Underground, and Ruth Underwood, of the Hamilton Face Band--and the two women who perform with Sly Stone. There are also a few singer-pianists and many folkies who accompany themselves on (low-energy) acoustic guitar. No electric guitarists at all.

It is possible to argue that women--as a function of cultural deprivation, of course, not innate disadvantage--have little bent for instrumental improvisation. As rock exists now, that may be true, although if so, it is even more true of jazz. But the deeper truth, I think, is more unpleasant than any cant about cultural deprivation. First, women cannot play rock guitar because men won't listen to them, and there is no need to belabor phallic analogies to explain why. Second, women cannot play rock because they cannot and/or do not want to create in blues-based male styles.

Granted, this is speculation, and granted too that there have to be a lot more men with guitar chops than women. The nice thing about such speculations is that anyone is free to make them because they're never fairly tested. I know by name of three female rock groups: Joy of Cooking (wonderful pun), the Enchanted Forest (who according to a recent Rat were put through the wringer by a male manager), and the Ace of Cups. I saw the Ace of Cups two years ago. They were strong vocally but didn't have much instrumental kineticism. They were, however, much more than professional, and I think it is significant that the group, despite its professionalism and gimmick appeal, never got a recording contract. I hope for my sake and for the sake of the music that women see fit to defy the odds and enter rock in capacities other than Resident Female Principle.

You see, I have felt over the past year and a half a steadily increasing disaffection with rock's male chauvinism. I am acutely uncomfortable with songs of cock-pride (Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," for instance), even though I still dig them as artifacts. I perceive all too well the other side of the born-to-be-wild theme--sorry to break your heart, babe, but the road is calling me. I am so far gone that I am offended by the Guess Who's "No Time" and uplifted by Janis's "Turtle Blues." I listen to "Do Right Woman," purportedly a hymn to the equality of the sexes, and hear its message: A well-fucked woman has nothing to complain about. I can't even take the good-hearted condescension of John Sebastian without wincing a little. So far, of course, I have managed to overcome my distress. Music is one of my great pleasures, and I'm not about to give it up. But there are times when I wonder how acutely conscious women continue to stand for it.

The carrot-and-stick of sexism is subtle and pervasive. Sexism predates any political or economic system, and it is carried by the entire culture. Just because it can be so far-reaching, feminist analysis fascinates the kamikaze left. A woman in a properly destructive frame of mind can justifiably reject almost all the art that has ever existed in the world. I can't, and I won't. My love for popular culture has always been nourished by one overriding assumption--that there is a human spirit strong enough to break through the distortions of any structure imposed upon it.

Whether we admit it or not, we always perceive art through a built-in set of compensations; we judge it and respond to it not only in terms of what and how it does and says but also in terms of what we feel about the limitations of its creator. No civil-libertarian atheist blames John Locke for having been a deist in 1690. Unless a woman wants to contend that it was only masochism that induced her to dig on "Heart of Stone" in 1965, then she has to admit that there was something there--some energy, as my rhetoric would have it--that was good for her. Even if the energy of rock is nothing more than sublimated (or not so sublimated) machismo, such machismo can be a step on the way out, a naïve reaction against apparent sources of oppression, and in that way it is beautiful.

There is another false trap here. Aesthetic reactions ought to come from the whole person. When a woman is turned off by some cocksure chauvinist on the stage of the Fillmore East, she is not "judging art politically." On the contrary, she is responding naturally to what she has come to feel as her own experience, just like the black man who doesn't want to be called boy, even by D.W. Griffith. The quality of a man's response to such implied insults has a lot in common with the quality of a white's response--secondhand, perhaps, but also gut-level if he's conscious enough. Nevertheless, I think hypersensitivity ought to be avoided. There is a sense, for instance, in which "Back Street Girl" is a sexist song, but there is also a sense in which it is a biting, accurate indictment of sexism--not to mention class oppression--at its most humiliating. In this and other vaguer cases I tend toward the kinder interpretation and reaction. When you love something as much as I love rock, that's probably a good rule and instinct.

I am rarely sanguine about politics these days. I believe the women's movement is going to make a lot of people, male and female, excruciatingly unhappy before it starts doing a whole lot of unequivocal good, but for all that it must continue, and it will. The prospects for a sexually integrated music in the near future are nonexistent, but it's nice to think that the next time music is revitalized, women may do the revitalizing. Maybe the sensibilities of all of us will be extended in ways difficult to imagine and trying to undergo, but deeply pleasurable when we get there. Whenever that is.

Village Voice, June, 1970
Any Old Way You Choose It, 1973

Anthony, my criticism of you isn't "driven by oppresiveness (sic) or fear", it's driven by complete and utter contempt for what you probably consider to be valid (but are in fact totally moronic) points.

Yeah, why can't women just accept their lives as they are? And when will they stop bitching about rape too! It's just the "how things are." God, it's awful the way they carry on, isn't it?

I get annoyed by this kind of discussion because no one ever solves anything but they get whatever side they are opposing all pissed off which makes the problem worse. I don't SEE why whether or not a musician is male or female or what their politics are is more important than whether or not they are making good music.

Oh, and Alex, I've been raped too. What the fuck? Why does anyone here care so bloody much about one teenage boy going off on "feminist bands"? Everyone seems to be having the Eminem white boy in rap argument here and I don't understand why any of that should ever be an issue above "are they any good".

Use stupidity to your advantage is I suppose the point I've been trying to make. Don't dwell on the idiocy of others and their ridiculous viewpoints cos you'll kill yourself that way. Take advantage of them. *shrugs* It's always worked better for me.

I think there are more useful forms of activism than simply "whining," but whether it works or not it's still a form of protest.

(dammit Jody got to submit first!)

ummm and for the record: the "are they any good?" question is redundant too. i mean most people think sleater-kinney are better when they aren't being overtly feminist than when they are. regardless of what the music is like. for example.

If that was what you originally asked, I don't think people would be that bothered by your question. But what you asked was
"Does every female rock band have to go on feminism rants?" -- as though women have no right to care about or mention feminism.

"I'll sympathize with DA in that I wish more people weren't so obsessed with viewing things through their gender or race. However, at least in the media, usually its the journalists who keep asking them about it. That doesn't excuse groups like Sleater-Kinney and LeTigre for the hateful statements they've made that would get someone lynched if they were genderflipped."

Statistically and also by anecdotal evidence men give less head than women, and often don't expect they should reciprocate. Furthermore men generally consider it "demeaning" to give head and generally there's a historical perception that sex is for the pleasure of the male to the point where plenty of foax denied for a long time that the female orgasm was nonexistant.

Interestingly enough, there's been a shift these days and the Maxim masculinity set takes it as a point of pride to do everything under the sun to give yr. girl as many orgasms as possible. Advice on how to do this is one of the reasons I read Maxim, actually.

However, it's still perfectly legitimate for SK to take this on especially as an analogy for gender relations and an abusive relationship more generally, and particularly when it isn't about sucking cock in general but about a selfish lover who recieves but doesn't give and is on the edge of abusive:

do you want to hurt me
go ahead and try

you're feeling sick
you poor thing
clean up your mess
then i'll suck your dick

didn't i tell you
it wasn't fun

you want to show me how to play dead
how to be still
how to please you

if i don't give you
just what you need
it hurts you
i'm such a tease
you're just a boy
who likes to whine

i'm gonna choke
can't feel a thing
you say go deeper
you like it when i scream

and then you tell me
i'm so good

you want to show me how to play dead
how to be still
how to please you

what's good for you
is not for me
what's over for you
is not over for me

i won't suck your big ego
and swallow all my pride
i'm spitting out your memory
and stains you left inside of me

i'm sick of being full with what you fed me
what i choked down
rip it out of me, you wanna rip it out of me

i'll show you how it feels to be dead
how it feels to be held still
how i wish you were dead
--Play Dead (emphasis mine)

It's quite a facile metaphor, I think, and also a reminder that boys need to pay attention to their partners and use their fingers.

Also, the embarassing Women In Rock issue of RS had Carrie announcing that Sleater-Kinney could never save rock because the iconic guitar figure is always a guy. A)Ignoring the fact that at one time all governors were men (thank god everbody didn't say THAT fight was futile) and B)Do they not realize how many fans and scribes think they're doing that to this day?

Maybe she's a bit pessimistic, but it reflects an understanding of rock as a gendered form and genre with a certain historical span and arc, rather than as, say, a set of statically apportioned posts as elected officials. Anyway, if, say, some women did want to "save rock" whatever the fuck that means, wouldn't they need to talk about the obstacles to them doing so in the course of their "struggle" just as no woman became a governor by pretending that her gender didn't matter? (In fact, one of the ways women have gotten into elected posts is by trading on their gender rather than sweeping it under the rug -- at least to certain constituancies)

"Feminist Sweepstakes" OPENS with a song declaring that they write rollerskating jams "for the queens and the fags."

First off, that's a fucking joke on their retro-camp qualities, and partly a joke about the centrality of their camp qualities as vs. their political ones. Furthermore it's a joke on the possible relationship between the two. Second, I mean, they clearly don't.

And as I said on the LeTigre thread, how would Kathleen Hanna feel about straight guys running down the street naked screaming "we recruit!" and "macho fury!"

Those are the opposites of NONE of the things raised by you. And their rough equivalent actually does happen all the time, so often flipping them is a form of satire (not that they've even been flipped in yr. examples). For example, when Queen Latifah made the gag about "black people kill black people all the time, maybe one day we should have a kill whitey day" she didn't actually mean that she was for killing lots of white people. It was much more nuanced and subtle than that -- she meant that black-on-black violence was bad and that black people should get together against oppression which they face. Of course Clinton couldn't have played the the racist vote if he took it for what it actually meant.

Hate shouldn't be responded to with hate, and these groups have had no issue with doing exactly what they'd find repulsive coming from men.

Again, yr. examples sucked and even if you found some good "flip the script ones" (which no doubt do exist, though not nearly as common as you make out) they would have much more nuance than you give them credit precisely because society is unequal in a trillio different ways at the moment.

And seeing a thread where someone is told to fucking die 99 times in response to a question that has some validity tells me that people aren't bothered by all forms of belligerence and hate, just the kind by groups not like them.

Strike "groups not like them" and replace "irritating reactionary dumbshits" and you've got a winner. Though to be honest DA's age does give me hope that he'll learn better -- I just wish these boards weren't the place where he got his education.

1. Women treated mostly terribly for thousands of years.
2. Some women point this out.
3. Society agrees to maybe try and work on not treating women quite so terribly.
4. This doesn't get accomplished quite immediately.
5. Some women continue to point out that some work still needs to be done. Some of them start bands. One of their ways of pointing out that this work still needs to be done is by reminding people that women were treated mostly terribly for thousands of years, and in a lot of ways still are.
6. Some men get all touchy and say "Jesus Christ, we said we'd stop treating you so terribly, shut up and quit being offended about it." They say this in the manner of a man who's been unfaithful to his wife and thinks that a single apology should enable her to completely erase all memory of the incident and go on as normal with no reaction.
7. David Allen starts message board thread saying exactly this in exactly the same tone.
6. Other people, who consider points (4), (5), and (6) to be somewhat self-evident, opine that David is being a little dumb.
8. David grows more strident, explicitly disagreeing with point (4) and implying that point (1) and by extension the entire history of the universe are irrelevant and that people should quit mentioning them because he's not interested and hearing them hurts his feelings.
9. Other people, who also consider point (1) self-evident, continue to opine that David is being a little dumb.
10. David reverses course, suddenly pretending that what he actually meant wasn't that he disagrees with points (1) or (4) or that he particularly minds point (5), but that he primarily minds when all of this is executed sloppily or simplistically.
10 1/2. Repeat points (6) and (9).

Don't take this to mean "shut up, you oversensitive idiot": I think a lot of the points you make are valid. I agree that Le Tigre could stand to be a lot less strident on a lot of their political points, I just don't think they're particularly reactionary on this issue. SK have never seemed remotely hateful or extreme to me, but that's possibly because I've never paid as much attention to the lyrics as I should.

The usual people are OTM.

I say Classic.

Also, might as well explain the Freud/Hysteria thing since ILX seems adrift is a sea of ignorance lately. So Freud starts getting all these female clients with stories of sexual abuse from their parents & others. He can't believe that this is that widespread in society so he cooks up "penis envy" and "hysteria" as the explanation for these so-called delusions. Hysteria has since then (and probably a bit prior) been used to dismiss what women say as delusional and brought on by strange female hormones which render them "irrational". Hynde is fully aware of this. And if you want to know more, read Foucault.

Now *that's* irony.

The reason why I wanted my point to get across is that no one (at least here) debates that guys obsessed with their masculinity are being a bit foolish. I think people should be able to call out ANY type of simple-minded way of thinking without being told they're traitors to the cause or some shit.

For example, consider Colette Dowling's The Frailty Myth which came out in 2000. Ms. Dowling, also the author of acclaimed feminist tome The Cinderella Complex, argues in the Frailty Myth that there are, in fact, no physical differences between men and women in the athletic sense. Differences in athletic performance are purely a result of the patriarchy's "hidden agenda of keeping women in their place by keeping them believing in their weakness." She insists that "studies show gender to be barely relevant as a predictor, or limiter, of athletic performance," she writes. "What really counts are acquired skills, trained muscles, and movement efficiency that comes from refined technique."

Seriously, she explicitly believes that if women were unleashed from the shackles of the patriarchy, the NFL, the NBA, the world of boxing, etc. would be completely coed. In other words, she's batty and, quite frankly, a liar since no legitimate "studies" show any such thing.

What studies and polls do show is that most young women don't want to be called "feminists." Why? Because the term has become synonymous with "unreasonable ideologue," "chronic complainer," "crypto-lesbian," and perhaps most of all, "humorless toothache of a human being."

This annoys professional feminists to no end — but then again, what doesn't? Their main gripe is the ingratitude of young women who "betray" the cause of the "founding sisters" who brought us so much. When you read feminist junk — and most of it is, quite simply, junk — there's a lot of guilt mongering about "continuing the revolution" and "finishing the work of our foremothers." But, the unfinished work invariably involves such picayune and marginal issues as "transgender equality" and homosexual adoption. Insisting these are the same issues as women's suffrage doesn't make it so. This desperation to infuse the cause with new passion is the chief reason feminists are so humorless. Because there are so few specific meaningful issues, all sorts of minor or nonexistent issues get injected with outsized and outlandish meaning. Make a joke about women or use the word "chick" in the wrong company, and you will likely receive a barrage of dragon breath about how "the degradation of women is no laughing matter!" You will be educated on the great chain of oppression, which begins with a dumb-blond joke and ends in female circumcision in Africa.

At bottom, the problem for the professional feminists is that most women, including liberal ones, have stopped drawing their personal meaning and identity from being female. Most women draw their sustenance from being lawyers, doctors, writers, mothers, friends, scientists, teachers, Christians, Jews, Muslims, yoga enthusiasts, environmentalists, whatever. Women don't need to define themselves primarily as women, at least not in the "oppressed by the patriarchy" sense, because they aren't oppressed anymore. It's the same problem socialists and Marxists and some trade unionists ran into when ordinary people refused to define themselves simply as "workers." “

'Women in rock' are created -- and doomed -- the moment someone asks 'Azza woman in rock, how...'

No-one is suggesting that things haven't changed since the 1950s. Obviously women have more opportunities available to them today in regards to education, employment and advancement. However, stating that women no longer face any oppression due to their gender is akin to stating that racism hasn't existed since the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

I realize that this thread is becoming blown out of proportion to the original question which was limited to female musicians and the music industry, but it is disturbing to see how many people have their heads in the sand in order to hide from these issues. No one is saying that you have to feel guilty about being a male; that appears to be your own reaction.

And dave q--straight white males "created civilization"? I hope you are being facetious. I seriously doubt that any one ethnicity created civilization; are you familiar with the Central American, Egyptian and West African civilizations, all pre-dating 'modern' European civilization and many of which pre-dated the Greek and Roman civilizations? BTW, I sure hope you weren't referring to the Greeks as straight white males.

I don't think so, and that is probably a big part of the problem.

do you notice how the CHIXORS on this board say their peace, and then leave, and then we get treated to 100 posts of MENG debating feminism and sexism. yes, please, tell us how to think, how to react, how to draw conclusions about our own femininity, etc.

enough. go talk about your dicks or something or something you have far more knowledge and experience of.

ref Equal Pay : Yay Tom!
I find it almost astonishing that anyone who knew anything at all about the still-present gender statistics of certain types of jobs/pay and work patterns and power structures could possibly think things are almost sort of 'sorted out' by now.
The extent to which that article accurately identifies something, and I think it does, is the extent to which Capital-F-eminism has been individualised or atomised or 'lifestyled' by the general swing towards some kind of individualistic right-leaning socioeconomic darwinism - the 'stop whining' ties in quite nicely with all that 'moaning minnies' & 'get on yer bike' scorn generated during the 80's by the tories in the UK. By the time we exited that decade, I think a deep distrust of any kind of collective thinking had been engendered (oops). It was every man for himself....and every woman too.
I think there is still a problem with the validity of overlap between the 'economic-political' and the 'domestic-personal' spheres in certain areas - eg Sterling you sound as if you feel that you're living out some 'the personal is the political' maxim by alleviating past/present orgasm-distribution-injustice through your devotion to a different Maxim and all it can teach you about sex - and while what you said about the history of the matter sounded true to me, I find it very difficult to believe that it places me under any 'social obligation' to do anything in particular in that area of my life - and I almost resent the idea that it might. Have I misinterpreted you?

Kate, while I think your post is rather harsh I understand where you're coming from and plan to abandon this thread as soon as I am no longer misunderstood (which would be my fault) and/or misread (their fault).

New roolz for this thread:

1. Only women can say anything about feminism etc.
2. Only minorities can say anything about racism etc.
3. Only straight white males can say anything about civilization etc.
4. Only men can say anything about being objectified by women.

Julian Casablancas to THREAD!

Trent Lott to thread!

No we aren't. I mean, I can't stop laughing at your post.

James/David Allen : please tell us where you got that funny passage everyone's talking about.

would she have been queen in the first place had old george and the queen mum actually produced a MALE sprog?

When my brother was trying to sell his naked spread-eagle self-portraits to Hustler, he too was told "come back when you get a pretty girl to do this pose."

So can we start to answer David's Candide-like question with -- instead of the very rude 'fuck off and die' he got -- some sort of answer like 'In order not to get themselves confused with the women so obviously profiting in the pop industry, females in rock go to great lengths to point out that their gender is a disadvantage, not an advantage, and that their femaleness should be responded to with guilt rather than pleasure'?

Speaking AS myself, I don't want anything to do with the two (TWO!) artists that offended David: Avril Lavigne and Le Tigre. I'll be over here in left field with K.Blechdom, Peaches, Gina D'Orio, and a few honorary bitches like Frogs and Country Teasers.

OK, Nick.

How would you feel, as an artist, if you were told by a record company, "go away and don't come back until you've found a MALE to write your songs?" This happens a hell of a lot more in this bizniz than your particular "dilemma". And considering that songwriting/publishing earns a HELL of a lot more than being the prancing pony in the dog and pony show, who's laughing at hte end of the day?

Er, if the prancing pony in the dog and pony show is just karaoke-ing his songs, seems to me that it's a pretty good way to earn money without doing any work.

Couldn't answer, as I only karaoke for fun. You might have to ask someone who does it for a living (and gets audiences to pay for it).

as an artist, i'd be wondering why the hell I was talking to this record company in the first place. with all due respect.

I bought/like the new Le Tigre CD.

I really wish I worded this thread differently when I posted it.

http://www.iwf.org/pubs/exfemina/July2000c.shtml

you wouldn't think so if you read rolling stone or vanity fair or any of those those other "chicks in rock" specials...

Quoting the IWF as some sort of authoritative source on this issue is in a lot of senses an admission that you have no idea what you're talking about (or have wandered over here from the Free R*public) (same difference).

1. It only examines the salaries of childless people in their 20s. This means it amounts to the shocking revelation that young people across the board don't tend to earn jack: the gender disparities emerge and balloon as time goes on. The IWF's use of this set is based on the vague statistic that young women today say they are "more into" their careers than women did previously, from which they rather unscientifically leap to the assumption that what used to look like discrimination was simply a reflection of women's lack of ambition.

2. The study also compared only single people, despite the fact that single women and single men are very different: the most career-oriented and ambitious young women are least likely to marry, whereas the opposite is true for men. If those women still make 2% less than male counterparts over whom they're likely more qualified, a definite disparity exist.

3. Most importantly, the IWF's ideological claim is that the real and obvious disparities that reveal themselves as people marry and have children are the direct result of women's choices. But in doing so, they're only proving the point that women are at a disadvantage: there is absolutely no good reason why the choice to raise children should have a massive and dramatic negative impact on the earnings of women and an often positive one on the earnings of men. The length of time during which procreation unavoidably limits a woman's career is approximately three months; beyond that there's no reason to pretend that replenishing the population is a burden women should be sacrificing their economic power to shoulder.

And in the case of the last, I think the burden is definitely on you to provide any compelling reason why a couple's decision to have children should have a great impact on the woman's earnings and not on the man's. This is what I mean, Phil -- you say it's "commonsensical" that having and raising children hampers one's career, but it's obviously not so natural because it doesn't present the same sort of barriers to men. In other words, a woman who makes the same career-related decision as her husband -- to have a child -- tends to be economically marginalized by this decision in a way that he isn't, which is what, at root, "inequity" means.

On the third point, the burden is not on me - Im not the one making assumptions- you are. Those assumptions being 1) that the disparity arises solely due ot the birth of the child AND NOT from DECISIONS made BECAUSE of the birth- for instance, passing up 'big' cases because they take too much time. Now unless you show me that the women said "I didnt make any decisions that could have affected my job aspiriations (and therefore salaray) other than simply having a baby. I didnt not CHOOSE to work less, take less time consuming jobs etc... ". The disparity arises then from the fact that the woman decided to make concessions and not the man. Now the problem becomes an inter-personal one between husband and wife and not The Big Bad Man and Woman.

Presenting, what is, one take on the methodology DOES NOT constitute "fact" as you argue..

you say there "is no good reason...." and there is and that is you

Dont change the issue into something it is not for me- I simply take offense to you trying to pass off opinion as 'fact' that's all. Im arguing SOLELY with the 3 things you listed above....NOT whether there is an gender gap (which I do believe)..

But on the other hand, have you ever been on a hiring committee that says "yeah he is good, but we have too many men working here...."

As you say below, "issues of family structure and childrearing" are, if not the answer, at least something that needs to be taken into account. It's certainly true that societal pressures and gender roles play a big part in the fact that the average mother takes on more of the burden of childrearing than the average father. But so do biology (childbirth, weaning, post-childbirth recovery) and simple choice. A discussion that leaves out any of those things will not be a balanced or complete one.

It would be interesting, by the way, to compare the average salaries of single mothers with one child and single fathers with one child -- though there's another roadblock there, in that the average demographic of single mothers is probably at least somewhat different than that of single fathers. Still, maybe a worthwhile study could be done, I don't know.

why are some people so defensive about this reality? God forbid it should be acknowledged that gender equality did not magically descend upon the land in a fine sprinkling mist one day in 1979.

There's a difference between denying the reality of discrimination, and refusing to uncritically accept everything one is told on the topic -- from either side of the equation. As I've said, I'm completely convinced that sex discrimination is an ongoing reality, but that doesn't mean that I have to accept that any given phenomenon is a result of discrimination. Critical thinking, if anything, is more important when you're sympathetic to the ideology of the information you're examining.

all I can say is ditto

Not as such, but in college, I heard a student say it when I was sitting with a table full of majors in a particular subject, who were trying to decide which candidate professor to endorse. This student was having a hard time justifying her preference, and she got pissed off and basically ended it by saying, "Well, it's not like we need another male teacher at this college." Another student gave her a withering look and said, "That's the fucking stupidest thing I've ever heard you say."

This is a simple methodological trick and has nothing to do with opinion! For example, the heights of adult human beings tend to range from just under five feet to just over seven: how would it disprove this fact if I compared the lengths of newborn babies and found that there wasn't so much difference?

Point (3) wasn't even an argument on my part, either: simply a statement that one of the biggest sources of income inequality between men and women isn't addressed in the IWF's work apart from their casual assumption that women happily sacrifice economic power to do other things. (The opinions of actual women who aren't paid right-wing ideologues are not always in line with this idea.)

So don't tell me about "uncritically accepting everything one's told" -- the only reason I entered this portion of the argument was to point out that no one should uncritically accept anything the IWF publishes on this idea, period.

Please dont talk about methodological tricks, I have a PhD. The above example is a ridiculous analogy because growth is not going to be affected by OTHER DECISIONS the baby makes (unlike the above scenario).

and on the third point, you didnt present it that way... Im done, btw

Typical female response. Does everything have to be about childbirth and menstruation? Why not compare the lengths of missiles over time: *they* don't change much.

You're logic is sound, and your rhetorical strategy is excellent.

Dude, you've just made a huge fool of yourself.

also foo, evah heard of the "glass ceiling"?

"Dude" its embarassing for me that you misunderstood that to the point which you did, and yet still tried to say something....

also foo, evah heard of the "glass ceiling"?

sure, starring opposite the glass floor, right?

"Yes, how dare you be so ignorant and rude , the battle for equality has so far to go, we have statistics, we have facts to show..... bla bla bla

David perfectly reasonable question to discuss, sadly typically inane femi-nazi knee jerk response from many here. Phil being a refreshing exception to the masses of boring pseudo intellectual speils that litter ILX. To be honest I dont know whats worse raging feminists, or boring left wing political street corner know it alls. Either way both groups are excruiatingly painful. For some reason they gather around here in droves.

The King ,or should that be Queen tosser, ALex in SF is still firing his limp wads... how depressing. Jeez Ive run over road kill and caught fish with more intresting opinions than that idiot.

Anyway Merry Xmas and goodwill and all that shit and hi Di I see you just posted ;-). Bye

use of the term "femi-nazi" = dictionary def. of "knee-jerk"

At first I just really liked the music; but held steadfast to my beleif that the lyrics couldn't be any good. Yet, I really listened to them, and realized that you can sing about anything, and it can be good. It can be the most inane, most over-used topic possible, but if it's well written, it always has potential. It could even be on something I disagree with (if it's a political song) and I may enjoy it - a great song is a great song. It's why people can still write love songs. Still.

I also rethought why the feminist comments annoyed me in the first place (the ones I had been seeing in magazines and on-line for a long period of time.) It wasn't really that they were said, it was how they were said. It was that they weren't saying anything new, it was that they seemed very inept, and they were just mentioning feminsim like it was a hip catch phrase to mention.

I wanted to mention re: Le Tigre that I don't think it's a great idea to think of their politics as just falling under the general same-old same-old banner of "feminism." Feminism as a philosophy or ideology is really one of the most diverse and fractious going these days, and Le Tigre's particular opinions actually do plot out a relatively specific path through a lot of the issues and debates within it. Their Giuliani line came up in other other thread, but without discussion of their first comment on him -- a note that he cleaned out all of the strip clubs in Times Square.

This is actually what I find funniest about "femi-nazi" caricatures, and this idea that feminists have a strict political agenda to impose at the expense of reasonable dissenting opinions: "feminists" as a group don't even agree with one another. Who's the Nazi: Andrea Dworkin or Camille Paglia? The bulk of people who call themselves feminists don't much like either one of them.

No one ever broke a glass ceiling by pointing at it and talking about it anyway. Why does it seem like the dudes around here care more than the chiXors anyhow? Taking sides: anti-feminist reactionary assholes v. uberfeminist frat-boy-guilt trippers?

Why does it seem like the dudes around here care more than the chiXors anyhow? Taking sides: anti-feminist reactionary assholes v. uberfeminist frat-boy-guilt trippers?

I'd guess because there's probably more guys around here than girls, for starters. If you don't think that any women care about these issues, well you sure as hell didn't go to the same college as me, that's for damn sure.

What I'm saying is by and large you get either half-jokes or reasonable answers from the girls, and downright hysteria from certain guys. What's that about? Pretty much it's about exactly what Paula said but anyway.

Rockist!er, Sexist!

Tangent: Last night I saw JD Samson in the Bedford L stop talking about eating in the McDonald's in Times Square. OMG, is the revolution OVER?!?!?!?!?

Go fuck yourselves. Have fun pointing at the glass ceiling and not actually doing ANYTHING productive to change it.

And you know for a fact how much pointless stuff gets discussed on these boards: we can be here, pointing out the glass ceiling to someone who denies its existence, or over on ILE telling bad jokes. Ally I love you but I find it just spiteful and repellent to waltz around sweeping cynical dismissals at people for actually caring about an issue. It bugs me to be scorned for taking this conversation as seriously as I've taken threads on Avril Lavigne.

Her being female and flip also in no sense dictates that she be told to "fuck off."

Didn't you get your fill of that 'victim' trope back on the newsgroup? Sheesh.

Also: women and black people should be just like the one or two that Pat Buchanan likes so much. You know, the ones that have become multi-millionaire businesswomen despite being black *and* female *and* crippled *and* stupidly republican? I mean, if people don't prove themselves to be worthy of respect from white males by beating or at least matching us at our own game then they're not worth the paper their welfare cheque is written on.

On the more general point - one (but only one) of the reasons I bother about Feminism is that for a large part of my childhood in the 60's 7 early 70's I was raised by a single-parent (Mum), my widowed Granny, and various Aunts who were also divorced/single. I think my OWN quality of life would have been a bit better if they hadn't had to live/work in a society weighted against them. And I think I'd have a better quality of life now if my beluvved didn't still have the same kinds of problems.
To a large extent it's a belief in life as a zero-sum game wrt money/power/status that still makes people think that someone else's gain/equality along those dimensions must mean a corresponding threat/loss of your own. (The extent to which this belief is justifiable within the resource-structure and psyche we have is the difficult part to flatten out, I think.)

On the music point - I blame the record-buying public. And I think Momus's identity post far above ref. self-identification/distancing was really interesting.

Ooops sorry Di I forgot to use the {/heavy heavy sarcasm} tag.

tl;dr