Loud Love: feminism & 'male' rock music (essay)

Loud Love:
feminism & 'male' rock music

I think it’s time to turn the volume up on women’s identification with, and enjoyment of, male rock musicians and the music they play.

Celebrations of ‘male rock music’ from a feminist perspective are rare.* We’re more likely to take male rock stars to task for the misogyny in their lyrics than thank them for the life-changing “fuck you” feeling they can plant in us. We’re quicker to point out how alienating the male-dominated – and therefore ‘masculine’ – nature of rock music can be to women, than we are admitting the ways women can negotiate this and stomp along to it all the same. 

A woman’s love for male rock ‘n’ roll is acknowledged in more mainstream circles, but often only through a heterosexist lens i.e. she only likes the band because she lusts after the guitarist.

So, let’s clear that one up first. Yeah, some women fancy the guy who fronts their favourite band. And so what? Let’s not deny it. Why should it be a ‘bad’ thing anyway? After all, rock music is sexy, so it’s hardly surprising a female fan may take a liking to the men performing it.** And importantly, just because she takes a fancy to a man in a band shouldn’t negate the female rocker’s status as a serious fan. Just because she’s looking doesn’t mean she isn’t listening.

But it’s also important to clear something else up; sexual dynamics between the female fan and male rocker are not the only ones being charged in the concert hall and at the stereo.

What else could a woman be looking at when he’s up there on the stage? Is it how he plays his instrument; how he carries himself; what he’s wearing? What else could she be getting from listening to his music - strength, freedom, resolve, determination? Could there be some aspect to the lyrics and mood of the music she relates to?

Ultimately then, women can identify with, and enjoy, a male rock star and his music in myriad ways - apart from the sexual - and I want to explore some of these in this essay, and start playing a more positive feminist soundtrack to talk of women’s relationship with male rock music.

I think this is important for two reasons. Firstly, identifying with, and deriving pleasure from, male rock music can have results that are not always wholly incompatible with feminism. For instance, what’s more in the feminist spirit than indulging in something that can empower you, in this case rock music?

And secondly, there are so many gendered connotations and binaries that have been built up, and accepted, around rock music, which require some feminist dismantling. By chiselling away at the stereotypes – e.g. metal music is ‘macho’ – and complicating them by considering, for instance, what female metalheads are getting from it, we not only afford more respect to the women participating in male-dominated spheres such as rock, but also open up new and liberating ways to interpret and participate in the sub-culture, which can be extended to how we interpret and do gender in the wider culture.

Despite all my radical feminist politics which may suggest otherwise, I’ve sought and received a lot of pleasure, validation, inspiration, empowerment, and general good times from male rock musicians and their music. And I’m sure I’m not the only feminist this applies to.

So, let’s shake off the taboo that seems to exist within feminist music circles which suggest we shouldn’t be enjoying the men so much, and celebrate the ways in which they may have helped and inspired us as much as female/feminist musicians may have done, or indeed feminism itself.  

The first “fuck you”

Rock music has mostly been associated with men. A survey of any mainstream rock music media will tell you that more men than women ‘do’ rock, either as performers or fans, and gender stereotyping has a part to play in this. Rock music can be all sorts of heavy, loud, abrasive, dark, challenging, uncomfortable, rebellious, energetic, disruptive. In other words, all things we could imagine men getting down to, but not women. Women – as that ol’ sexist song goes – are meant to be quiet, passive, simple, serene, not cause a fuss. As I’ll discuss later, this type of gender binary soon falls apart when applied to some rock music. But it’s still largely the case that women who participate in rock sub-cultures are the minority.

But to me – and feminist rock writers such as Ellen Willis, Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers - rock music and feminism are kindred spirits. I’ve written about this previously***, arguing that the energy and rebel yells inherent to rock ‘n ‘roll, rather than standing in opposition to what women are ‘meant’ to be by white patriarchal standards, can instead give women a space – stage or mosh pit - to escape the confines of stifling sexist femininity and unleash hidden strengths and confidence. The form of rock is also a brilliant means by which to communicate feminist demands. The Chicago and New Haven Women’s Liberation Rock Bands of the ‘70s and Riot Grrrl are two examples of how potent the fusion of rock and feminism can be in this respect.

As such, this is one of the ways in which women can positively identify with, and enjoy, rock music, and disrupt some of the gender stereotypes that have built up around it. Rock music is not essentially ‘masculine’, even if it is dominated by men, and holds loads of potential for women.

But for the female fan, this doesn’t necessarily have to lay with female rock musicians. Sure, it’s great when you’ve got women bands making just as much noise as the men bands and you get that combination of righteous feminist fury on top of “fuck you” raucous rowdy guitars. But that doesn’t mean there’s no potential in male rock music for making us feel as strong and defiant as a Riot Grrrl anthem might.

For instance, let’s not down play the fact that male rock music may arrive before feminism in a young woman’s life to stoke her first “fuck you”. This was certainly the case for me. Rock ‘n’ roll got me through my socially anxious, awkward adolescence (and is still playing a part in getting me through my socially anxious, awkward twenties...). It was male bands that made me feel okay with not fitting in, and not only that, but to embrace it. They told me that there was another way to be, there are different paths you can follow, you can be a different kind of person, and that’s all good. Their music made me feel strong.

It was male rock music – not feminism - that first began to build my confidence, encouraged the development of my own voice, and gave me my first lessons in not giving a shit and being who you want to be.

Whilst the music I was listening to – a lot of dodgy punk rock and nu-metal (rock music wasn’t at its most credible when I came of rock ‘n’ roll age unfortunately) – wasn’t particularly enlightened by feminist standards (whatever they are), or even that good by musical standards (whatever they are),  for a shy, socially awkward, 16-year-old girl living in a conservative rural town, listening to this stuff had an incredibly powerful effect on me which still resonates to this day.

It’s important not to dismiss the female teen rock fan’s predilection for the hot new sexist rock ‘n’ roll band on the block. The reason those of us living in small towns and the suburbs were only managing to get down to Limp Bizkit and not Le Tigre in 2002 was because, without a cool queer feminist underground music ‘scene’ to point us in the ‘right’ direction, we relied on Kerrang! and MTV2***** to tell us what was good. And even if the favoured f word of bands such as the former was only ‘fuck’ and as far away from ‘feminism’ as you could get, the music could still instil in the young female fan feelings of freedom and power she hadn’t felt before.

And this is why I think young women are better off listening to the most sexist rock ‘n’ roll rather than the type of music – boy band pop - they are ‘supposed’ to like. Songs by the likes of JLS and Westlife are far more insulting to women than, say, Nookie by Limp Bizkit. Whilst there may be more overt misogyny in the latter, at least the energy of the song can propel a woman to shout right back at it and invoke in her the energy she needs to stake her own place in the world, whereas the former merely encourage her passive place in heterosexual relations.

This passage from Women, Sex, and Rock ‘n’ Roll, an essay by Terri Sutton, which can be found in the anthology Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap and Pop, perfectly describes the feelings of liberation, empowerment and just sheer fucking joy rock ‘n’ roll can bestow on the female listener. She talks about “identifying with that crushing roller coaster of sound” and:

I remember seeing the Clash when I was eighteen and coming out of the show buoyant and huge, wanting to jump and lunge and keen at the moon and fuck until the sun came up. Feeling rich and strong and full of myself.

This is why women love rock. And sometimes the music that makes her feel this good just happens to be performed by men.

Sexism can sometimes help(?!?)                                                                                      
I now want to go further, by considering how it may be those unenlightened, sexist aspects of a song that fuel the female fan’s feelings of empowerment, in addition to the loud energy of the song they lay on top of.

What if a feminist does sing along to lyrics in which ‘bitch’, ‘cunt’ and ‘slag’ appear , fully aware of their derogatory meaning, but enjoying it anyway? What if she finds the lyrics and manner in which they are expressed by the male vocalist, not something to be ignored, but an indelible part of what can make a rock song so fucking good? Is she a ‘bad’ feminist, doing women down? Or is there something else to it?

I find Mary Gaitskill’s ^ thoughts on this subject convincing. In an article she wrote discussing her attraction to Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Axl Rose – your sexist rock star stereotype – she touched on what a woman may be channelling when she joins in with her favourite rock star’s sexist posturing. And it’s not necessarily the misogyny in the lyrics per se, but the general ferocity behind it:

A [...] school kid who’s been moved out of the lunch line knows where Axl’s furious screams are coming from. A tiny old lady hobbling down the street knows. All human beings know, on some level, of those moments when you want to stick your hand up somebody’s ass and tear his guts out. To hear that fly out of the radio, streamlined by Axl’s high, carnal, glandularly defined voice, is an invitation to step into an electrical stream of pure aggression and step out again. This opportunity to connect, even indirectly, with an experience of realized power is going to be a seductive sensation for anybody.

Sure, in its original form – man using the powerful form of rock to lash out at women – the result can be ugly and oppressive. But that doesn’t mean a woman should automatically tune it out or turn it off. As Gaitskill points out, the hostility Axl expresses – or any other male rock star for that matter – is something we can all – including women – relate to and can give us a medium through which to release and express our own tension and anger:

I imagine that girls, even more so than boys, could look at Axl Rose and feel intense delight at seeing him embody their unexpressed ferocity, and thus experience it temporarily through him.

So, this is why women may not want to transcend the sexism of a song and be fuelled by its form alone, because the nasty lyrics and harsh form often intrinsically go together to create that space she is not often granted to vent her rage, And admitting this does not mean that the woman enjoying and singing along to sexist lyrics will be venting the hostility in the same direction as the male vocalist i.e. towards other women. Gaitskill again:

Of course, it could be argued that there are other ways for male rock musicians – and their female fans – to channel their frustrations without indulging in misogyny. And you’d be right, there are. Plenty of female and male rock bands have managed to wield the force of rock to express anger and dissatisfaction without the sexism.^^

If you like the “fuck you” part of a song, then you take it into yourself and let it help you tell people to fuck off; the “who” part is your choice, not the singer’s. Who Axl really hates or doesn’t hate is his problem and should be given no power.

And sure, there are issues with sexism being expressed in rock lyrics, as they contribute to sexism in society as a whole... but then so do sexist jokes told by comedians, sexist storylines in soaps, and sexist representations of men and women in advertising. This is nothing specific to male rock music. Besides, as Gaitskill points out, a woman’s sexist sing-a-long is only temporary, all of four minutes if that, before she “steps out again”.

Personally, I’d always rather listen to a song, which to quote Ellen Willis^^^, may be “antiwoman, antisexual, in a sense antihuman” but which nonetheless “boldly and aggressively la[ys] out what the singer want[s], love[s], hate[s]” and “challeng[es] me to do the same” rather than listen to “timid music [which makes] me feel timid, whatever the ostensible politics.”

Not to mention the fact that women may like sexist rock songs for the simple fact that they are just bloody good songs. 

Femininity in the ‘macho’ metalhead

Up until now, I’ve been making a lot of the fact that rock music written and performed by men can be sexist, but the female fan can still love it, because the music’s loud energy, and sometimes those sexist lyrics too, can still embolden and empower her and provide an irresistible means by which to channel her frustrations.

However, a lot of male rock music does not require the feminist listener to tune out or re-work its derogatory messages. For starters, a lot of rock music can be pretty asexual in terms of its lyrical content (a lot of male rock acts may not even mention women in the majority of their songs). But also, a lot of what male rock bands do go on about in their songs, the moods and atmospheres they encapsulate, even their personas and physical appearance, come closer to representing and channelling elements of what is more typically associated with ‘femininity’, than ‘(misogynist) masculinity’.

I want to explore this next, for I think it can suggest other ways a female rock fan may identify with, and enjoy, male rock music, as well as complicating many of the gendered notions that have been built up around rock.

If you take any random sample of all-male hard rock and metal bands (and I suggest these sub-genres because they are more likely to have the “you nasty sexist meathead” finger pointed at them^^^^), I bet you could find these elements constituting more of their lyrical content, and forming more the basis of their sound, than sexist cock-posturing: isolation, madness, darkness, sadness, despair, insecurity, confusion, wistful thinking, introspection, longing...

I could go on, but you may be starting to get the picture. That is, we are more comfortable seeing these sorts of things expressed by - or at least more used to equating them with - women. This is all that moody, messy, temperamental, hysterical, generally emotional stuff that has mainly been - in sexist fashion - associated with women. In contrast – and in equally sexist fashion – this is the stuff men are meant to fear and run from (in women and themselves). Men are meant to be bold and brave, the rational ones, strong, keep their emotions in check... it’s women who are the “leaky bodies”^^^^^,  who cry, are more likely to feel pain, get confused, feel alone, suffer insecurities, experience mental anguish.^^^^^^ And yet a lot of male rock bands tap into, and express, these stereotypically feminine traits. It’s a big part of what rock is all about.

Even bands who belonged to the genre of nu-metal – as misogynist and puerile as their lyrics sometimes were – spilt their guts in detailing things such as self-abuse, depression and child incest; hardly the stuff of pure macho meathead metal-dom.

So, is this why women like rock music by men? Because they relate to all those unwieldy emotions a lot of male rockers know how to sing along and riff out to so well? Perhaps. As a fan of rock that rolls to this sort of thing, I know there’s lot of resonance and respite to be found for the female listener in a big manly metal-fest, whose form belies the more sensitive disposition of the singer.

For instance, take Soundgarden-era Chris Cornell. Howling on top of those gorgeously sludgy heavily complicated riffs is your typical bare-chested, strutting rock star... until you actually listen to his lyrics. Therein lay big delicious dollops of anxious low self-esteem to wallow in and rectify yourself with:


                                                           Soundgarden - Outshined

Such music cannot only help us deal with our own inner mental turmoil and existential angst, but also pretty much be a life saver. And as I keep saying, coupling this sort of content with the energy and volume of rock ‘n’ roll can have a cathartic, powerful, and revelatory effect. 

Women can have pretty profound and personal reasons for liking certain all-male bands - acknowledging the woman singing her heart out to every single word her favourite band play at your next rock concert can tell you that much - and points to the reality of many women’s relationship with rock music by men, which is just as valid and fucking important as our more openly discussed relationship with rock music performed by women.  

To further illustrate how fragile typical gendered constructs of rock are – and in turn why feminists should be louder in affirming rock music by men – let’s go all ‘90s for a bit and compare the all-male band Pearl Jam with the all-female band L7.^^^^^^^

In a nutshell, I see Pearl Jam – and in particular their vocalist/lyricist Eddie Vedder – as constituting a more ‘feminine’ presence in rock than L7. For starters, there’s more echoes of the classic ‘cock-rock’ sound in the choruses and riffs that form L7‘s sound, than there is on anything Pearl Jam have put to tape. Also, the abrasive lyrical and vocal style of L7’s Jennifer Finch and Donita Sparks are quite opposite to the more introspective tendencies of Eddie Vedder. And then there’s the bands’ live performances; the sort of rock star strutting we associate with male rock musicians is more evident at a L7 show than a Pearl Jam one:

Right On Thru - L7

Release - Pearl Jam

Generally, L7’s vibe is one that’s quite cold (and that’s not a criticism); their guitars are harsh; their lyrics don’t delve too deep; their songs are defiant; their persona says they are in control, they know exactly what they’re doing – more what we’d expect from male rockers then.

Whereas, Pearl Jam’s sound is the epitome of warmth; the lyrics are a lot more personal, they do delve deep and inside; there’s more insecurity and fragility about a Pearl Jam performance; the messy feminine erupts all over a Pearl Jam record.

But it would be essentialist to suggest that women only like hard rock music by men because they connect with its stereotypically ‘feminine’ elements. As I said earlier, some women just like rock ‘n’ roll because the sheer force and volume of it can knock us on our arses, and we can also get off on its less lady-friendly bits.

Ultimately then, it’s hard to keep rolling out the same gendered readings, and maintaining the same gendered constructs, that have been built up around rock performance and fandom - in both male-centric mainstream and feminist music circles - because it’s all so much more complicated than that.

We can’t equate all male rock music with sexist and macho masculinities, and therefore treat it as more un-female friendly than rock music by women. Some male rock musicians do deviate from the ‘macho’ norm oft-associated with them, and incorporate more feminine elements into their music and performance. And this could be a point of identification and enjoyment for the female fan.

In contrast, female rock musicians have sometimes embraced, rather than always eschewed, the types of sounds, attitude and persona we’d normally associate with male rock stars, and the female fan can also find pleasure and release in these sorts of sounds and styling – whether it’s being performed by a female band, a male band, or whatever.

This is why I think we need more feminist affirmation of male rock music. Not only because a lot of women enjoy it and are inspired by it – whether it’s because they relate to it quite personally, or just like the “fuck you” form it takes - but also because some male rock music does demonstrate different masculinities, the kind that aren’t necessarily oppressive or alienating to women. It’s this blurring of the lines between masculinity and femininity, the messing about with gender stereotypes, which can not only be liberating to all those who participate in rock sub-cultures, but points to how gender can be done differently in wider society too.

Revolution (partly) Grrrl-Style Now!

In this last section, I want to explore a few other ways in which women can enjoy, and identify with, male rock music, but this time more explicitly in relation to rock music by women.  I want to argue that whilst feminist celebrations of female rock musicians and the music they play is important, this should not be at the expense of considering how rock music by men can inspire, empower and feed the feminism of the female fan to a similar extent as rock music by women.

Community

The Riot Grrrl ethos is one which favours creating communities of female musicians and fans, which if not always entirely separate from men, certainly prioritise the women within them. This is undoubtedly important and necessary given how women are still so often marginalised within rock music sub-cultures. However, this should not preclude how women can – and do – create communities not only within rock music spaces which are more male-dominated, but which centre around male rock music as opposed to female rock music, as Riot Grrrl communities necessarily do.  

An interesting example of a female community centred on its relationship to rock music by men is Metallichicks.com, an online discussion forum for female fans of Metallica. From the website:

We're just girls who LOVE Metallica. Plain and simple. We're here to stake our claim in this Metallica world and prove once and for all that the girls can rock just as hard as the guys can. We're here to worship at the altar of heavy metal the way WE want to, and we hail Metallica as our king. Yup, that's right. We're a group of Metallica loving, head-banging chicks, only unlike the guys, we've actually got long hair which makes the banging all the more fun!

Do we say MetalliChicks are ‘mis-identified’ and better off worshipping at the altar of an all-female band as their queen? Well, no. Communities like this one should be deemed just as important and valid – not to mention as cool – as anything explicitly Riot Grrrl, for they similarly unite women to stake their place in a male-dominated sphere and indicate how male rock music can inspire and impact on women in similarly profound and positive ways as rock music by women can.

Music

Then there’s the assumption that music by women is somehow going to be more empowering, politically correct and generally more feminist, particularly in terms of its lyrical content, than rock music by men could be. Yet, not only can the experience of listening to male rock music be just as libratory in terms of its form for the female listener, there are also reverberations of feminism to be found in the lyrics of rock songs written by men, which can be just as exciting to indulge in.  

Even if communicating a feminist message wasn’t the intention of the artist, echoes of it can still be loud enough to be picked up on by the feminist listener. And a lot of the time, given rock ‘n’ roll’s nature, these less overt examples of feminist-friendly lyricism, can fuel and validate a female fan’s feminist politics in a more profound and intense way than perhaps a book or blog of a more explicit feminist nature can.  

For example, let’s sing along to the chorus of this one ladies like we’re about to see the patriarchy go down:

                                                                     Uprising – Muse

So, listening to rock music by women is not always what’s needed to fire a woman’s feminist energy. Personally, I would always choose the above track to be played at the revolution, as opposed to something by, for instance, Bratmobile, because even though that’s band’s music is more ‘Feminist’, the form the above song takes, the energy behind it, makes me feel liberated on a more visceral level, despite its unintended feminist undertones, and isn’t that how all good rock ‘n’ roll should make you feel?  

Role models

Moving away from discussing the enjoyment of music by male rock musicians, and instead considering how women can identify with the male rock musician himself, I want to point out how feminists’ tendency to hail the bad-ass ladies of rock as inspirations to women – either as musicians or as positive female role models more generally - at the expense of considering male rock musicians’ potential as icons for women, can reinforce more narrow standards for women to live up to.  

The likes of Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and Hole’s Courtney Love are often held up as positive and inspiring examples for female rock musicians and fans. And the sort of loud, strong, confident, confrontational persona these women exude from the stage and on record (if not necessarily off stage) seem to be the most legitimate and applauded persona for a female rock musician to take on. This follows through into the message Riot Grrrl sends its female followers – it’s important to protest, stick up for yourself, stand tall and take no shit. Roar, shout, scream. Now, this isn’t a criticism of the likes of Kathleen and Courtney and the Riot Grrrl mantra – they’re empowering examples of the way rock can be a liberating space for women, and are vital in not only dismantling notions of rock as inherently masculine, but also allowing women to step out of the silent, passive feminine roles they may have been encouraged to embody.

But by emphasising and applauding this sort of attitude and persona in female rock musicians and fans to the detriment of others means we end up with another one-dimensional template for women to cut themselves from - as if the mainstream doesn’t give us enough of those already!

Not all female fans of Bikini Kill are necessarily going to be inspired by Kathleen Hanna’s confident, kick-arse persona. We may like it, but that doesn’t mean we want to be it, or could be it, even if we wanted to. Instead, we may identify more with the men in our favourite bands, particularly if they deviate from the macho masculine norm, as many men in rock are able to, just as women in rock are able to deviate from the passive feminine norm. Personally, I identify more with say, Matt Bellamy of Muse, for his awkward, eccentric demeanour than I do with the confrontational kick-arsery persona of most of the female artists I like.   

So, this is why we need to pay more attention to male rock musicians and the personas they put out there, for this could not only be another way in which female fans identify with male rock musicians, but do so precisely because of the somewhat limited range of female role models they are offered within rock music sub-cultures.

All of these other ways women can enjoy and identify with male rock music - the sense of community male rock fandom can provide, the feminist potential in male rock lyrics and the more diverse role models on offer - is why I believe we need more feminist affirmation of the rock music played by men, and not always assume that women rock musicians have more to offer the female listener.

For whilst the whole Riot Grrrl ethos is one I can get behind – women should be claiming as much space as men on the stage and calling out the sexism which is still evident in the sub-culture - I also get a bit unnerved by its tendency, and that of feminist explorations of rock ‘n’ roll more generally, to frame rock music by men as inevitably more alienating and derogatory to its female fans than rock music by women. And this isn’t always necessarily the case.

Conclusion                                                                                                                           

Throughout this essay, I’ve highlighted some of the ways women can identify with rock music written and performed by men, and considered why they might love it so much. It can be empowering and life-affirming on a personal and political (feminist) level; it can be a channel for expressing and relieving our frustration, confusion and anxieties – which can be via the most misogynist rock song or one which expresses its male performer’s own insecurities and fragility.

Looking at women’s relationship to male rock music through this more positive feminist lens also exposes the more complicated ways gender is constructed and enacted in the sub-culture, ways which are more radical and conducive to feminist aims of re-working gender than is often given credit.

There is nothing inherently ‘macho’ about abrasive, scorching, loud rock ‘n’ roll; loads of women rock musicians have put paid to that. But whilst the transgression of femininity by female rockers has been instigated and applauded by feminists, particularly in terms of the Riot Grrrl movement, what hasn’t been acknowledged to the same extent is the transgression of masculinity evident in the music and personas of many male rock musicians. And yet rock music is one of the spheres in which more progressive masculinities – or at least different masculinities from the stereotypical norm – can be played out.

Sure, you still get your typical sexist strutting rock ‘gods’... but a lot of rock music actually expresses the fragility and inner rioting of the souls of its male performers, which come closer to stereotypical notions of the feminine than masculine. And sometimes both aspects are evident in a single male performer – I offered Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell as one example of how the frontman’s confident physical performance can be contradicted by the insecure persona he puts across in his lyrics, but you could also say the same about Metallica’s James Hetfield. Equally, there are frontmen who eschew rock star posing and boasting and who are more akin to averting their gaze and keeping shouty banter to a minimum on stage. And these types of performance and persona can be as much a source of inspiration and pleasure for the female fan as the many women rock musicians more usually held up as icons for women with their assured commanding of the stage and songs protesting external sexist realities.

In the title of this essay, and throughout, I’ve repeatedly referred to ‘male rock music’. This has been for the purposes of making my argument, but of course, there’s no such thing. You get men performing rock music and you get women performing rock music – but how they do that, what they communicate with it, they way they dress it up and play it out, really bears no intrinsic relation to the sex of the people performing it. As I’ve pointed out, the form of rock music itself cannot be gendered ‘male’, and what we deem ‘masculine’ and what we deem ‘feminine’ can be noted in both male rock bands and female rock bands. There are myriad manifestations and performances of gender to be gleaned in both male and female rock musicians and the music they play.

Given this, the demarcation between all-male rock and all-female rock so often invoked within feminist music circles becomes more problematic, and part of the problem is how it distorts and denies the female’s relationship with rock music by men.

There should be more feminist appreciation of women’s relationship to male rock music; to note how it can be just as important and inspirational, and full of feminist potential, as our relationship with the feisty stuff of our favourite female bands, and also to expose the greater diversity and subversion of gender performance within rock that’s apparent when we also have our gaze on the guys.

That’s how we further the rock ‘n’ roll feminist cause.  

Notes

      *One exception is Devils or Angels? The female teenage audience examined, an essay written in 1981 by late feminist rock writer, Lori Twersky, and which can be found in the anthology of feminist music writing, Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap and Pop, compiled by Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers. Twersky tears down sexist stereotypes of female rock fans and gives more reasons as to why a young woman may like a band aside from finding the guitarist attractive, including: “Many girls’ fantasises [of male rock stars] are of friendship or working partners; as you move down into the subteens you enter “I wish I was his daughter” territory” and “Some fantasises are of “I wish I was my favourite star” type” (my emphasis).

Also, if you have even a passing interest in women’s involvement in rock music, I highly recommend the McDonnell and Powers anthology. There’s loads of really interesting essays in there, which will confirm, as well as complicate, any ideas you may have about women as rock musicians and fans.

**Female fans may also take a liking to women rock musicians on the same basis, and what about applying this to male fans of male rock musicians too?      

           

***As well as arguing for the synthesis of rock and feminism in this article, I also devoted a lot of space to pointing out rock’s misogyny. Whilst I still think there are a lot of sexist rock lyrics, videos, CD artwork, mosh pit behaviour, and general attitudes in rock, I’m now more interested in considering the ways in which women can negotiate this, instead of just railing against it.

*****The growth of music downloading over the past few years may provide more opportunities for teen rock fans to be exposed to a greater variety of music, but even then, if ‘feminism’ and ‘Riot Grrrl’ are words not spoken around your end of town, you still wouldn’t be looking it up on iTunes.

^Mary Gaitskill, An Ordinariness of Monstrous Proportions (1992), in Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap

^^But even being a fan of these bands is no guarantee you’ll not come across sexism, or just general arse-holery. You can attend a concert by a band whose music is largely devoid of sexist and other derogatory content, and still bear witness to oppressive attitudes and behaviour.

^^^Ellen Willis, Beginning to See the Light (1977)

^^^^At a recent panel discussion on ‘’90s feminism’ (reported at 90swoman.com), Allison Wolfe of Bratmobile, and one of the instigators of Riot Grrrl, said that the movement was partly a “reaction to grunge” and that the genre’s “supposed softer new brand of masculinity was actually sexism in different clothing”. I couldn’t disagree with her assessment more.

^^^^^Taken from the title of Margrit Shildrick’s book, Leaky Bodies & Boundaries: Feminism, Postmodernism and Bio ethics

^^^^^^I realise that this gender binary – men as rational and in control vs women as messy and emotional – somewhat contradicts the gender binary I outlined near the beginning - men as vocal and abrasive vs women as serene and passive. But this just shows how ridiculous gender stereotyping is – not only is gender (masculinity/femininity) not intrinsic to the sex it has been assigned (male/female), the very notions of masculinity and femininity are fraught with difference in themselves, adding to their instability.

^^^^^^^For a really interesting study of the re-workings of gender performance which took place in the early ‘90s “alternative hard rock scene”, I recommend Mimi Schippers’ book, Rockin’ Out of the Box (2002)

By Michelle Wright

Spring 2010