Maximum RocknRoll

Pink and Blue

Winter grows bitter and drags on. War drums continue to sound in the distance; time passes filled with dark skies and rain. Cold air blows in from under the door and seagulls dance white breasted into the wind. This month, my friends, enjoy a few words of rancor and discontent. I start a fire, and begin with an eerie story I heard last week, told by former President George H. Bush, Reagan’s first successor.

George was cruising DC, giving a speech on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of NAFTA. The moneyed celebration was in honor of December 17, 1992, when President Bush, Mexican President Salinas, and Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney signed the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement and set the neo-liberal beast ablaze.

At 4AM, watching Bush on C-SPAN wax nostalgic over NAFTA was like watching a car crash, horrible and sick, but I couldn’t turn away from the gore. The event was a small gathering, it didn’t draw much noticeable press, and the former Prez was talking casually to his old supporters. Bush, I’m sure, did not realize I was watching.

I was struck by Bush’s frank admission that NAFTA destroyed some 800,000 jobs in the US alone. Bush said he sympathized, but, hey, that’s “the cost of progress.” And what is that cost, for so much corporate profit? I’m sure the automotive workers of Flint, Michigan and the corn farmers of Mexico would solidly agree. Globalization’s “progress” is paid in blood and tears and broken towns.

I was also surprised that the aging Bush talked frankly about the Seattle anti-globalization protest of November 1999. He stammered, looked pissed off, and referred to all of the protesters as “anarchists” who “at least had the good taste to get a good cup of coffee at Starbucks while they were rioting.” Just plain weird. Then, Bush lightened up and joked with the former leaders of Canada and Mexico, “I’m sure we all have our favorite protest story.”

Here goes. Keep in mind that during Bush’s term in office, the backlash against Roe vs. Wade was rapidly coming to a screaming crescendo. Right wing fanatics, spurred on by the “family values” rhetoric of conservative politicians and evangelist preachers, had already violently attacked several clinics and abortion providers.

Bush is telling his “favorite protest story” as a joke.

It begins as the official Presidential entourage is driving through San Francisco. A dummy car had been sent though the city first, in an attempt to thwart assassins and protesters alike. However, Bush said, a lone woman spotted his limo and ran toward the car carrying a sign.

“She was the homely type…actually, she was downright ugly,” Bush said, prompting chuckles from the crowd.

“She was carrying a sign that read, ‘KEEP OUT OF MY UTERUS.”

Bush paused, and then delivered the punch line, “I said… ‘No problem, lady!’”

HA HA HA, it’s funny. Old white men in the audience laughed. Mrs. Bush with her white hair sitting in the front row laughed.

I didn’t laugh, but watched, awestruck, by the bloodstains on the street. In 1992, while Bush was laughing at the “ugly” protestor from the comfort of his limousine, there were 194 violent incidents reported at hospitals around the US. Only two years later, pro-life terrorists had murdered five clinic workers, and wounded several more.

Two women were killed at clinics not far from where I live, not all that long ago. On December 31, 1994, Planned Parenthood was in Brookline at the time, on historic, quiet, tree-lined Beacon Street. A man walked in and shot the receptionist, Shannon Lowney, 25, in the neck, shot other people and then escaped. Ten minutes later, the same man entered the nearby Preterm Health Services clinic with a rifle in a duffle bag and shot Receptionist Leanne Nichols, 38, at least five times before firing at other people and fleeing. Both women died that day.

Really fucking funny, Georgie boy!

I’m not surprised Bush is a sexist bastard who trivializes women fighting for their human rights. I suppose it was his flippancy, his offhanded manner that upset me, and burned the event into my memory. Bush, formerly one of the most powerful people in the world, treated women’s rights as simply an annoyance on the way to somewhere else.

And so it goes. Sexism and violence against women remains a fundamental part of our culture, despite the fact that women can now wear pants in public and grow up to be astronauts. Abortion is an issue that should have been settled in 1973. It’s a reproductive choice, end of story.

But it’s not. During his election campaign in 2000, current President George W. Bush told the USA Today, “The FDA’s decision to approve the abortion pill RU-486 is wrong…as president, I will work to build a culture that respects life.” And in current politics, “life” is a keyword for a type of Christian fundamentalism that demands women serve, honor and obey.

And who is laughing now?

Well, Barbara anyway, right on cue, poor woman.

The weather turns, and the cold rain becomes snow.

Here is where I bring it all back to that glorious subject of Punk Rock. The days of boys and men using their girlfriends as coat racks while they go in the pit are not all that far gone, if they are gone at all.

Add more fuel, and feel the heat of acrimony.

Let me introduce one irritating, widespread example of prejudice and willful ignorance perpetrated by both men and women in punk. It’s just this little thing people say, and the larger meaning behind it. I’m sick of it, so let me share.

Here goes. Many times someone has told me after my band has played, “I don’t like women singers, but you’re good.”

Long pause on my end. What am I supposed to say to this? “Um, gee…thanks,” I’m usually stunned.

So many times I’ve heard people say this shit, bald faced, without seeming to be insulting. The ironic thing is that they are usually trying to pay me a compliment, are trying to be nice. And, hey, what’s so bad about a compliment?

The thing that isn’t so nice is the subtext, the unstated but obvious flipside to, “I don’t like women singers.” It places all the hundreds of punk rock singers out there into only two camps: boy side and girl side. And boy is somehow better. There are countless male singers who suck, but does anyone ever say, “I just don’t like boy singers?” No. I’ve never heard it, or read it in any fanzine. It would be a stupid thing to say.

The second part, “but you’re good,” only adds insult to injury. It means that somehow I’ve overcome the sad state of being a girl singer, and have graduated into becoming almost as good as a man. It’s like the ultimate compliment I got from the boys when I was a “tomboy” in elementary school and the only girl tossing the football with them during free period, “You’re just one of the guys.” Oh, the salad days. I could run faster than the boys in my class, too. Guys were saying the same things back then, even before we all hit puberty, “Girls are stupid, but you’re cool.”

These days, I know better.

I recognize the code words for a sexist superiority complex just asking to be kicked in the nuts.

But, maybe people who say, “I don’t like women singers…” are just missing out. Maybe they’ve only heard a few women singers and are basing their opinion on only a few people. They act like girl and women singers all sound the same. By the annoyed tone of voice, I imagine they think of girl singers as either a screaming artsy Yoko Ono, or a Britney Spears type ultra femme who lost her soul somewhere two blocks back. I have no idea, but the distaste is clear, even couched in a compliment of all things. Maybe these folks just don’t get out of the house all that often, or get to see good bands or buy decent records. But Jesus H. Christ, at least borrow a mix tape, play the radio, see a few bands and get a life before you become so fucking judgmental.

Obviously, all women singers do not sound alike. Or, act or dress or think alike either. There is no global cabal.

HA! Now I’m laughing. As things are so simple that I should have just drawn a stick figure diagram instead of wasting all these words, and all this paper and ink, too!

There are women and girls in punk, trash and hardcore bands from all around the world. They sing, scream, yell, and carry a tune in as many different ways as there are individuals. I’ve heard women in bands sing like Broadway starlets and scream like demons from the bowels of Hell, and perform every style in between. The range of vocal styles that women have employed is incredible. Think of the difference between Poly Styrene of X-RAY SPEC and the extreme growls of the original HARUM SCARUM lead singer. Live, I’ve enjoyed watching punk women singers with stage personalities that run the complete gambit of styles. Lynn Breedlove, the in your face butch singer of TRIBE 8, wore a strap-on and then cut it off with a huge knife. Jenny of the MIDNIGHT CREEPS donned high heels, glitter eye shadow and garter belts while singing sadistic rock and roll. 86’D were straight-up tough New York Hardcore. The list and variety of women performers is endless.

But how do we account for the ignorance of people who should know better, like record reviewers, whose job is to regularly listen to new music? More times than I can count I’ve read music reviews, even in this very magazine, that state, “I don’t like girl singers…” It’s confusing, really. Someone who has very good access to music should have a few more words in their critical descriptive vocabularies besides “boy” and “girl.”

Some people argue that men and women singers just sound “different.” Well, Fender and Gipson guitars sound different. Only a jackass would dismiss all the guitarists who play Fenders. For the most part, it’s not what you play, but how you play it. No one says, “I just don’t like Fenders, so I don’t like your band.” If a critic doesn’t like the way the vocals sound, he or she should just say so. But boiling it down to gender is just insulting. It insults the reader who deserves a better description, and insults women by unfairly judging them as a group. Saying such things is just lazy writing, and much worse than that, it perpetuates fucked up stereotypes.

And so it goes.

Let’s feed the flames one more time and raise our fervors as I avoid going out in the cold. Let the bile heat and bubble, and raise stinking sulfur to the surface.

I think one of the saddest things about sexism in our scene is the oftentimes invisibility of women, something punk shares with the rest of society. It goes along with women scientists not getting full credit for their discoveries, women politicians not getting the media coverage that men do, women artists having to struggle for the same recognition as men, and women’s issues rarely making the national agenda.

Women and girls are everywhere making punk more fun, more artistic, more creative, more brutal, more organized and vibrant. Women and girl punks are putting out ‘zines and records, and running labels and distros. Women are in bands from Japan to Sweden playing instruments and screaming their hearts out. Women are in the pit and fucking shit up. Women are everywhere. But then, why am I at a show, so many times wondering, “Where the hell are all the ladies?”

Last week I went to a show that had 18 bands or so on the bill. Fucking 18 bands were scheduled to play at the Chopping Block, a small dirty bar in Boston, from 2PM to 2AM. It was a fun rocking drinking messy affair, with the likes of KERMIT’S FINGER, JONEE EARTHQUAKE BAND, ZIPPO RAID and CONFRONT all playing 15-minute high-energy sets. It was a perfect show for those of us with short attention spans and strong livers. But, out of that monster long lineup, I counted only one woman on stage the entire night. One.

During that moment of realization–which is all too often–I am always a little sad. One woman was on stage that night at the dive bar, out of about some 60 or so band members. Do you see what I mean now? How women in so many things are often missing from the picture?

I’m bet the show organizer didn’t set it up to be a boy-fest on purpose, and I’m not out to make an example of him here. It’s so common that women performers are left off the punk rock bill, especially at big shows, that it is far from unusual. Maybe show organizers just, “Don’t like girl bands.” But I doubt that’s usually the case. I think it’s more complicated than that, and also can parallel challenges that women and minorities face in the larger scheme of things.

For one thing, there just aren’t as many women in bands. It’s not as simple as, “Girls don’t like being in bands as much as guys do,” as many thoughtless people try to explain. I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think there are many possible reasons why. For example, I’ve noticed that in high school, when most of us start getting interested in punk, boys generally receive a great deal more encouragement from their parents and friends to be in bands than girls do. Many young boys get their first guitars for Christmas, or save up and buy them, and are asked by their guy punk friends to be in bands. I’ve read so many interviews where the lead singer said something like, “Yeah, I never thought about singing before, but my friends just asked, and then we got together, bla, bla, bla…” The boys practice in someone’s parents’ basement for a couple of years, eventually learn to play their instruments, and another punk band is born.

This doesn’t happen as often for young girls. I know it wasn’t that easy for me. Parents are generally more restrictive of girls, and the idea of little Susie getting into sex, drugs and rock n’ roll scares the crap out of them. Girls tend to have stricter curfews and limitations on being out late, especially when they’re out with guys. It’s unfair, but the norm. This double standard can really put a cramp on a girl’s practicing, going to shows and hanging out with the punks.

I also think girls can have a harder time finding band mates, and supportive people to jam with, than boys do. High school is a time when society’s prescribed gender roles are coming into full force, people start dating, clicks rule the day, and girls and boys are somewhat socially separated. Basically, high school sucks. All-girl-bands, and bands-with-girls do form in high school–and rock hard–but tend to get together less often than all-boy-bands. It happens. I know it was true when I was a teenager, and I don’t have a simple solution. I suppose we need to break down the sexist stereotypes of our society, for starters, and encourage more girls to pick up instruments and just start screaming.

Now, back to the show.

Besides the fact that there are fewer women in bands, it’s more than a little odd that so many shows have hardly any women on stage. Sometimes, I think women in bands can be left out of the close-knit network of people and friends who put on punk shows. A few things women in bands can do is organize shows themselves, and let people who put together local shows know they’re out there by giving out demos. If no one has heard of your band, you’re not going to be asked to play. Another thing we can all do, to make sure women in bands get the respect and inclusion they deserve, is to be more aware of the shows we put together, and be more conscious of new bands who might need some help getting started. It takes more work than just booking the usual suspects, but it’s worth it. C’mon, aren’t 60 white guys on stage just a little boring? Please.

Jessie Drastic, bassist of THE ENEMY MYSELF, was the only woman performer on stage during that twelve-hour marathon show. And, it just so happens that she is amazing. Not because she is a woman, but because she is Jessie-who-rocks-out-on-the-bass. The ENEMY played a little longer than the guy who set up the show wanted, so he yelled at them and then shut off the PA. Jessie, punk as fuck, kept playing all by herself with a sardonic smile until he switched off the power to her amp.

HA! Jessie makes me laugh at the world.

And here I end it. Everyone who imagines a better world without patriarchy and stupid stereotypes just has to just keep on playing, even when we get shut off. Women and men both have to shed the sexist crap that we’ve been fed all our lives and dare to try something radically different.

And to the next reviewer who says, “I don’t like women singers…” FUCK YOU!

Much Love, Erika

ransom@theprofits.org