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Bring Back Strong, Smart Women Rockers

I grew up with the Riot Grrrls but nowadays Britney rules. What happened?

Kathleen Haley 3 Aug 2004TheTyee.ca
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I read there's a new a new feminist movement of knitting clothes with friends. I've got nothing against knitting. But I want to rock.

I miss the days of the 90s when there seemed to be a limitless number of female musicians who played really loud guitar and shouted a lot.

Punk, alternative, mainstream. In the 90s, each was home to many rockers making vital music that explored their lives and the world around them. Unlike the Britneys of today, these women didn't sell themselves as sexy pop star products. Take the Riot Grrrl movement that rose in the early years of the decade. Underground band Bikini Kill encouraged feminism and tackled sexism in songs like "Double Dare Ya" : "Dare ya to do what you want / Dare ya to be who you will / Dare ya to cry right outloud."

Many less political but still strong women like Sheryl Crow , Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette drove commercial playlists, while edgy, smart attitude emanated from alternative musicians like Liz Phair , PJ Harvey , and The Breeders . The Lilith Fair tour formed by Vancouver's Sarah McLachlan exposed a lot of young women to a great variety of passionate and intelligent styles of female musical expression.

Well, the underground riot grrrrl movement is over, even if Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill is still singing about feminist issues in her new band Le Tigre.

Where is the new blood? Where are the new movements, the new women's tours?

'Media machines'

I got to talking about it with a neighbour of mine, Brian Pascual, who happens to be music writer, and he agrees: "There isn't a new wave of solo female artists." Pascual, who contributes regularly to Chart Magazine, sees a change in the way women make music. Strong female musicians are now making a name for themselves under their band's name. He gives the examples of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Brody Dalle of The Distillers.
 
Shauna Pomerantz, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, is researching girls' identity construction in high school and how it intersects with girls' culture. She's optimistic about the state of girls and rock music.

As I moan about pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Pomerantz offers her own quick tour of pop music politics: "I'd say that the line of feminism in rock started with Nancy Sinatra in the mid 1960s, continued through the 1980s with Madonna, took an 'underground' and 'political' turn in the early 1990s with Riot Grrrl, took a 'mainstream' turn in the mid 1990s with Alanis and more Madonna, took a 'commodified' turn with the Spice Girls in the late 1990s, and pretty much continued on in various forms through other female rockers, like those in Lilith Fair."

Todays Spears clones like Jessica Simpson are "media machines," says Pomerantz, who does find Christina Aguilera  more interesting because in interviews she talks about female pleasure, masturbation, and sexual double standards -- that girls are called "sluts," and boys are called "studs."

Pomerantz also points to some decidedly non-Britney successful female artists today: Avril Lavigne, Norah Jones, and Amy Lee of the band Evanescence.

Girls with rock dreams

No, there's nothing like Riot Grrrl punk at the moment, Pomerantz says. The boundaries are getting blurrier all the time. "What we have now is this proliferation of women rockers but they're not classified as rockers or as punkers. But I wouldn't classify them either as pop." For example, Lavigne is popular, but she's not "pop" if that means "bubblegum" or "let's-please-the-boys."

Pomerantz thinks the Lilith Fair/RiotGrrrl synergy of the 1990s broke down a wall for women. This led to the many female artists who today work with men, alone, or with bands. Maybe female musicians don't need the kind of support system they had in the 90s to make it anymore, she suggests. Not that the pop and rock worlds have become gender neutral. But there may be more room for women now.

"I think that men do dominate," she says. "Men get paid more and get more prestige. But at the same time, if I were to look at the big cultural landscape of rock, I would say that a young woman with a guitar and a dream has just as much of a chance of making it as that young boy does in his basement playing Led Zeppelin riffs."

Pomerantz makes intelligent points, but I don't think the rock world has advanced to the point where women's tours and music communities are no longer necessary. And while Pomerantz is correct that the sexy pop star is nothing new, I still find the persistent hype about the bodies of Aguilera, Spears and Beyonce disturbing.

On Avril's young shoulders

Then there's Avril, the wildly successful Canadian 19-year-old who's topping charts and selling millions of albums. Lyrics for big stars like Avril are all over the Internet. She bravely talks about not wanting to "give it up" to a boyfriend in "Don't Tell Me,"  a hit off her new album Under My Skin: "Don't think that your charm and the fact that your arm is now around my neck / Will get you in my pants I'll have to kick your ass and make you never forget."

Avril's music has strong messages and she inspires scores of girls. But a smart 16-year-old, Vivian Rempel of Vancouver, finds Avril a bit, well, young. Avril is a "kind of stupid" teenybopper, Rempel says, but adds that she respects her for co-writing her own songs.

Britney Spears? About her ilk, don't get Rempel started. She doesn't buy into the marketing and says their music videos are all about sex. "They're not independent. They're totally made up. They're just totally not themselves."

Rempel sees Spears and her clones as businesswomen. And maybe women who care more about creating music than selling their image are not taken as seriously these days.
"Maybe women (as artists) just aren't as respected as much as they should be," she says.

'Little libertine'

Most of the bands Rempel likes have male musicians. Luckily, that doesn't stop her from picking up a guitar and trying to play. Still, I'm sorry she doesn't have a community of strong female musicians to keep her company during her high school years. Because my high school friends and I knew we were part of something exciting when we played the music that women were making then.

I remember announcing to my mother that women rockers had arrived. Then I played Hole's album Live Through This for her.

It's a shame that Courtney Love , who inspired so many teenage girls to think about feminism and music in the 90s, has been so self-destructive. Because when Love sang about "anorexic magazines," I could relate. Everyone I knew read those beauty magazines. And when you weren't feeling enraged, you could turn to quirky musicians like Kim Deal of The Breeders, and sing along to songs like  "Cannonball": "I know you, little libertine / I know you're a real koo koo."

The women rockers of my youth inspired me to take guitar lessons and, for a couple weeks at least, I was in a rock band. I was the same age as Vivian Rempel and I remember how cool it felt to know: "That's right. I'm a girl and I play guitar."

Nobody's slave

The female musicians of the 90s sent a message that women could express their thoughts and emotions in the hyper-masculine world of rock music. They wrote angry songs. Goofy songs. Political treatises.

The Britneys send only the tired message that women should dress and act in ways that are sexy to men. Their individuality has been stripped, along with their clothes. 

In Portland, Oregon, there's a Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls, now in its fourth year, helping girls from ages 8 to 18 make noise and shake up the world. Thank god they are full up with a waiting list. I know we need more strong female musicians when I see Britney on MuchMusic sauntering around to her song, "I'm a Slave 4 U," : "I'm a slave for you. I cannot hold it; I cannot control it. I'm a slave for you. I won't deny it; I'm not trying to hide it. Baby, don't you wanna, dance upon me, (I just wanna dance next to you) To another time and place."

Kathleen Haley is on staff at The Tyee.


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