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Maddie MacWilliams Senior Year Project Newton North High School May 13, 2011

Smashing the Glass Guitar Analyzing the perception of women rock musicians in the United States, with a focus on their portrayal in the media and the response to this portrayal by the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s.

Abstract

The purpose of my research was to analyze the way that women rock musicians in the United States are perceived. I did this by looking closely at their portrayal in the mainstream media, and at the responses to this portrayal, with a focus on the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s. Riot Grrrl describes a subgenre of punk music and the musicians associated with this genre. Disenchanted with the sexism that they saw pervading the media’s reporting of female musicians, the Riot Grrrls rejected the mainstream and did everything themselves, from creating their own record labels to writing and publishing their own magazines. But this outright rejection had consequences of its own. While they had more freedom in choosing how to portray themselves, they were never able to reach the masses like they could have. In my research, I too discovered a media bias against women. Many articles about rock music ignore women musicians completely or include them only peripherally. Articles that focus explicitly on women rock musicians tend to misrepresent them, usually by minimizing the message of their music and emphasizing the appearance or sexuality of the musician. The Riot Grrrls exemplify just one way to combat these biases. In my analysis, I relied on both secondary sources and personal interviews with local musicians. From both, I have found that women rock musicians are marginalized. But it is not just the media that is to blame, because this issue is systemic. Mass media affects mass opinion, which in turn validates the biased ideas propagated by the media. Stereotypes such as ‘women don’t play drums’ are reinforced in articles //and// by women who choose not to play drums because they believe that it is not an acceptable or typical thing for a woman to do. My decision to research the perception of women rock musicians came from my love of music and my desire to break through the barriers set by traditional gender norms in my own life. While we cannot change cultural perceptions overnight, each of us has the power to impact our community and therefore our society. Regardless of our gender, we can dress and behave how we feel comfortable, and relax our judgments of others who do not fit into our ideas of what is typical. Instead of judging them, we can learn to expand our definition of normal. Only through the example set by individuals does society ever truly change. I am an avid poetry-writer. I also sing, play guitar and drums. So for the project portion of my Senior Year Project, I decided to professionally record a CD of original songs. My songs are not explicitly about gender, nor are they stylistically informed by Riot Grrrl, but I believe that I am going against the grain in my own way, by simply being myself, whether or not I fit into even my own biases about what a woman should be.

Smashing the Glass Guitar It is virtually undisputed that men dominate the rock music industry in America. It "was basically a male club" in the 1960s and still is for the most part (Willis). While some scholars assert that women have generally had smaller roles than men in making music, others argue that women have //done// just as much as men and simply have not been recognized for their achievements. This is a problem, but there are also issues for women in rock music when they //do// get acknowledged. The mainstream media (i.e. well-read newspapers such as the New York Times or Los Angeles Times and music magazines like Rolling Stone) have promoted negative gender stereotypes by portraying women in a biased and unfair way, both through language and content – by deciding what to focus on and what to omit. A feminist punk movement in the late 20th century, dubbed Riot Grrrl, saw this imbalance and decided to do something about it. Instead of just accepting the media bias as a part of life, Riot Grrrl musicians vehemently opposed it. These bands, though they became fairly popular, stayed underground, producing their own records on their own labels. They printed and distributed their own magazines, called ‘zines, so that they could critique each others’ music without feeling that their messages and identities were getting undermined by subtle (sometimes even unintentional) hints of sexism at every turn. This paper looks into the portrayal of women musicians in the media and asks, how effective was the Riot Grrrl response? While theirs was a strong and clear message, one of the shortcomings of rejecting mass media was that this message didn’t reach the masses like it could have. Another unfortunate result of this rejection is that there aren’t many articles out there about them; barely any of the ‘zines that they wrote are online, and the mainstream articles, mostly retrospectives on the movement written long after its peak, are also a bit hard to come by. But the Riot Grrrls didn’t want to sacrifice the integrity of their message for attention in the spotlight. Just how prevalent is this media bias? As recently as 2003, Rolling Stone magazine published a list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” which included only two women, Joan Jett and Joni Mitchell (Baitz, Edmonds). When women are not entirely left out of magazine articles, they tend to be depicted differently than men. As a musician, one tries to present herself in a certain way, but that presentation gets changed as it gets interpreted by different people through writing and reporting. This applies to everybody who gets media attention – not just women and not just musicians. But for people who fit into both of these categories, there are certain patterns that have emerged from their media portrayals that reveal a larger issue than individuals simply misrepresenting other individuals. These misrepresentations are not isolated events – this is a systemic problem. ‘The mainstream media’ is not a single powerful entity trying to squash women rock musicians’ prospects for success, but rather a form of communication that is in constant motion, and one that both follows and sets precedents. The power of the media lies not in one person, place or company but in the messages that are continuously repeated through the words of many. Repetition is a powerful tool. Even seemingly miniscule incidents – beginning one’s article on Joan Jett’s musicianship with a physical description of her for instance – impacts her when multiplied by hundreds of writers and thousands of articles. There are various theories about the actual impact that the media has on individuals. Experts in different fields disagree, but whether “mass communication… only… confirms the status quo” or “provide[s] potent sources of information and education,” it is undoubtedly an important factor in the formation of widely accepted attitudes. “Most people in technological societies form their personal views of the social realities beyond their immediate experience from messages presented to them through public communication" (Gordon). In this way, the mainstream or mass media has the ability to greatly influence the public. Media outlets such as newspapers and magazines are also companies trying to sell their products for profit, so when they write they have to ask, ‘What sells?’ Answer: sexuality sells. Reinforcing ideas that are already in our culture sells. Jennifer Guderman, Senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music is also a studio musician who plays keyboard and sings. Guderman argues that while commercially successful pop bands like the Spice Girls can introduce subversive ideas in their music, to a large extent, it serves to reinforce traditional gender stereotypes. Some musicians, like Madonna or Blondie, manipulate their image and use their sexuality to make a point. They exaggerate female stereotypes in an almost satirical way (Guderman). Others, like the bands in the Riot Grrrl movement, outwardly rejected gender norms. They played “challenging, fiery punk” music at a time when that whole genre seemed reserved for men only (Sleater-Kinney: Biography). Sleater-Kinney’s “raw, startling blasts of expression… became more than just songs. They became imperatives” (Live Report). Anderson Mar, a female punk musician in Boston, sees the music industry as being “more image-based…[for] female musician[s]… and [their] stage presence has to be one of two things -- shocking, or sexy -- in order to sell.” The language used in myriad articles to describe women musicians tends to marginalize women as a whole. It validates one’s music by comparing it to a man’s, and uses gender markers to identify ‘women’ as a united category unto themselves, as separate from what’s standard. Nobody would call the Sex Pistols a great //male// punk band. And yet one might say, ‘she is the female Bob Dylan.’ This tells us that //he// is the standard that //she// should be measured against: men set the bar (Feigenbaum). The constant use of gender-identifiable descriptions like “punkette” and even “female rocker” are equally important. By calling a woman a punk //ette// rather than a punk, she is identified as different from the norm, and excluded from the definition of punk or included only peripherally. She can be into punk music and style, yet the pure identity of ‘punk’ eludes her because of her gender. Likewise, if she is called a //great female rocker// rather than a //great rocker//, //female// identifies her as different than just a rocker. Because she is female, she can never embody the definition of //rocker//. Also, her identity as a woman comes before her identity as a musician. Gender markers such as these (suffixes on gender-neutral words (“-ette”), and gender-identifiable adjectives (“female”) preceding gender-neutral titles (“rocker”) downplay women’s contributions to the rock canon by putting them off to the side, in their own category. This supports the idea that men are the only typical rockers. If women aren’t the norm, then they must not play //norm// al music. They therefore must have their own separate canon of music, which is just an //alternative// to the standard, male one (Feigenbaum).  Women who play rock music have been painfully aware of these biased portrayals for as long as rock has been around, but Riot Grrrl blossomed in the early 1990s to address this issue head-on. They emerged from a variety of sources – women musicians of various subgenres of rock who rebelled against tradition, from Joan Jett and the Runaways to Patti Smith to British bands like X-Ray Spex. Decades before Riot Grrrl, “women’s music” emerged out of the second-wave feminist movement in response to the lack of mainstream attention for women in music. This movement was made up of a variety of female musicians, producers, engineers, festival organizers and promoters. Those associated with the movement were, for the most part, just individual musicians who rejected gender stereotypes through their music and attitudes. There wasn’t any sort of cohesive movement until Riot Grrrl. That said, even Riot Grrrl was more of a collection of young musicians who wanted to change the sexism they saw pervading society than an organized group with a single goal. The name Riot Grrrl was originally introduced by the feminist punk band Bratmobile, but became popular as the title of a magazine that was written and distributed by members of the punk band Bikini Kill. The term came to refer to either a subgenre of rock (essentially politically-minded feminist punk music) or the bands and people involved in the genre and movement. Some ‘Riot Grrrls’ embraced the term, while others felt that it was just another way to be labeled and dismissed by the media. Both of these perspectives are in line with the main message of the Riot Grrrl movement: ‘Don’t define us. We should get to define ourselves, and you should respect that definition.’ Although Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill) said herself that there is no authoritative definition of Riot Grrrl, her “Riot Grrrl Manifesto” spoke to many involved in the movement, and accurately reflects much of what the Riot Grrrl bands convey through lyrics and interviews. Empowering women to feel like they //are// allowed to define themselves, the manifesto insists that those //involved// in the movement should be the ones to characterize it. In the words of Kathleen Hanna, “we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't [or what is good or bad, cool or uncool]” (Riot Grrrl Manifesto). Riot Grrrl is characterized by its loudness – the loudness of its music and of its message. Riot Grrrls sang about “sexual abuse and inequality” amidst the din of driving guitar and powerful drums. Sleater-Kinney, a trio that formed in the mid-90s just as Riot Grrrl was beginning to slow down, exemplified this. With their “fiery punk” music, they “rebelled against the sexist traditions of rock & roll” (Sleater-Kinney: Biography). The Riot Grrrl bands did not want to rebel by ignoring their gender, but rather by bringing to light some of the difficulties that come with being a woman. For many women musicians, including the members of these bands, gender is an essential part of their musical expression and provides powerful subject matter for their songs. One’s identity as a woman is an important part of her life even if she doesn’t want it to be, insomuch as nearly everything in our culture, upon close inspection, is separated out into male or female, boy or girl, man or woman. It’s not just bathrooms and clothing stores; personal hygiene products, shoes, movies (think ‘chick flicks’ versus action movies), types of alcohol (think about for whom beer commercials advertise), even colors – before we even come out of the womb many of us get showered with gifts that are either blue or pink! It’s no wonder gender identity contributes to creative expression. No wonder this dualistic perspective on gender seeps into our perception of music – it is absolutely ingrained in our culture, and reinforced everywhere we look. When we think of women in music, we probably think of pop or country music at first. Maybe we think of singer-songwriters or folk musicians. When we think of women in //rock//, most of us probably think of singers, a few guitarists or bass players, and perhaps a drummer. Formed from tradition and historical precedent, a simple and common assumption such as, ‘girls sing in rock bands but don’t play drums’ becomes harmful when we stop thinking of it as an observation and think about it as a fact. Then, to us, it seems different, perhaps even bizarre or unnatural for a woman to drum in a rock band. Stereotypes, while having some factual basis, become walls for us to put up when we don’t want to deal with realities that we may not be familiar or comfortable with. This particular kind of stereotype ultimately discourages women from drumming. Because of that, there are far fewer women drummers in bands than singers. And //that// in turn reinforces the stereotype. This isn’t just about drums, or even instrumentation. Simone Berk, founder of the Boston-based band Sugar Snow, has found that when she tells people about her band, men //or// women, they assume she sings, “but are then surprised that [she] also plays guitar, and are //most// surprised that [she writes] all of the songs.” It’s a tough cycle to break, and there is no single prescribed way to break it. Should women try to fit in with the guys or forge their own path? For Renee Solano, the drummer for Sans Nomenclature, her gender is “a way to get people [initially interested in coming] to her shows.” Because it is rare to have a female drummer, people are curious about it. But Renee, like many other musicians, doesn’t “want to be known as a female drummer… just…as a drummer.” So should we ignore, notice, or reject the idea that music made by men and women is separate? The Riot Grrrls did not want to change who they were in order to fit in, and they didn’t want to be judged by the mainstream in ways that were biased against women. This is a tough combination of desires. Riot Grrrl musicians truly wanted to define themselves on their own terms. So they created their own form of media that allowed them to take advantage of freedom of speech without having to face the obstacles that they would have had they tried to get articles published more conventionally (in well-known magazines and newspapers). This rejection of convention, though, produced obstacles of a different kind. Riot Grrrl magazines and bands, insisting on having control over their means of production, did not reach as many people as they might have been able to otherwise. Thus, the Riot Grrrl movement is still largely unknown; the bands have had limited airplay on the radio, and they have not achieved widespread success. There are trade-offs for everything; if they’d had their music produced by major record labels, for example, they would have reached a wider audience, but they certainly would have had limitations on what they could and could not express in their songs. The Riot Grrrl bands knew that they had limitations either way. They chose the underground route where they could say what they wanted as loud as they needed to say it. Maybe they didn’t feel the need to appeal to the widest range of people possible because, for them, the more important goal was to get the message out, unfiltered by outside forces. The all-female punk band Sleater-Kinney was “mostly unknown in the mainstream and [showed] little interest in recording for a major label.” For Sleater-Kinney and the other bands associated with Riot Grrrl, “rock ‘n’ roll [was] more about community empowerment than stardom” (Sleater-Kinney: Biography). The portrayal of women in terms of their sexuality is also very different from male musicians. One important theme is the perception of either masculinity or femininity in an artist's presentation, and how that impacts her success as a musician. When a woman ‘shreds’ on guitar, swears or sings aggressively, can she fit in as ‘one of the guys’? Does she even //want// to? Women in local rock bands interviewed by Stephen Groce and Margaret Cooper had mixed responses. They //can// be in roles traditionally given to men, such as the drummer of a band, but in those roles they are treated differently from men by both audiences and male band members (Gill, Groce, Willis). They found that their other band members didn’t expect nor want them to contribute their ideas to the songwriting process, and, simply by virtue of their gender, they heard shouts from the audience at every concert. Though they were occasionally about the music, most of the comments directed towards the women were about their looks or sexuality. This reaction doesn’t come out of nowhere. By beginning an article about a Joan Jett concert with a description of how the musician is aging in a "shockingly good" way and how she is "enviably slim," Susan Carpenter emphasizes appearance, and subtly asserts that success and looks do indeed go together, especially if you are a woman. Carpenter is not alone. She did what many writers do. But whether in an obvious or a subtle way, the media certainly influences reactions to women rock musicians by audiences and others who hear their music. Simone Berk, of Sugar Snow, once “went to meet a radio promoter, [who] said to [her], ‘I would never send a picture of you to any radio station I was hoping would play you. One look and you’d be dead.’ [Simone] was never sure if that was aimed at [her] face or [her] age, not that it matters. No man would ever be told that. Just like in the rest of society, an unattractive man can still be successful. It is much harder as a woman.” So what about women rockers who don’t aim to be conventionally attractive? When Riot Grrrl bands like Bikini Kill performed, they didn’t try to be pretty. They just threw their message out there for everyone who would listen. As a result, some people may have felt threatened. Riot Grrrls frequently got called sluts and whores at their concerts; some audience members even threw things at them. Decades before, Janis Joplin, someone "who was not conventionally attractive, could not only invent her own beauty...but have that beauty appreciated" (Willis). Still, her ‘type’ of beauty was never seen as typical, and she was still judged based on male standards. She struggled with this throughout her career. Getting so many negative comments about her looks really affected her self-perception. “Anne Wilson [of the band Heart] was constantly told she had to lose weight by her record company. Her voice is unbelievably powerful, but that wasn’t enough” (Berk.) So, does the music get listened to first or do the musicians get looked at first? It seems like a lose-lose situation: regardless of a woman musician’s appearance, her looks are so frequently commented on that they become a significant part of her identity, whether she wants them to or not. This paper focuses on common experiences, but there is actually extraordinary diversity amongst women musicians. The music and the public persona of the artist, the degree to which they conform, and the ways in which they reject convention all vary greatly from person to person. Some musicians are more forthright about their rejection of convention, such as Ani DiFranco or Joan Jett, and some are more subtle. Saying “women musicians” is like saying “paperback books” in a sense: “paperback” tells us nothing of the author, genre nor writing style of the book. Likewise, the word “woman” tells us nothing of the genre and instrumentation of the music, nor the identity of the musician apart from her gender. There are multifarious reactions to the disempowerment of women in music. Musicians are subversive in various ways, some more outwardly than others. The more up-front women musicians are about being unconventional, the more they seem to be dismissed as ‘radical’ by the media. This is exactly what the Riot Grrrl movement faced in the mid-1990s, along with artists like Ani DiFranco (Feigenbaum). There are gray areas in all of this, depending on different definitions and perceptions. There are controversies as well, one of the most important being: to what extent do women musicians need to reject gender norms for the message to be one that challenges convention? Is there a particular 'packaging' that works? The type of ‘girl power’ that is presented by rock or pop bands like the Spice Girls is drastically different from the empowerment presented by the Riot Grrrl movement. Some argue that the Spice Girls’ message completely undermines the message of the Riot Grrrl bands, but others believe that they are compatible. There is no true resolution to this issue. For every punk girl who feels disempowered by messages in music or the media that praise ultra-femininity, there is another girl out there who hears the same messages and realizes that you don’t have to be a guy to pick up a guitar. The issue of the perception of women musicians in the media, and women in general, is a complex one. Unraveling it is what is truly important, because, as we begin to see the connections between articles written about and reactions to women musicians, it becomes clear that these issues are systemic and collective. Once we know just how widespread these issues are, we can start to figure out just how much we can do to change them, to challenge assumptions with integrity. It’s like this: no one person can change an entire culture. But, at the same time, it takes just one person to inspire another, so setting an example is something that everybody can do regardless of gender. You can have an impact by rocking out to music made by women, by learning to play drums if you are a woman, or even by becoming aware of your own judgments and biases. The way to change systemic problems is to educate: to make yourself aware of the issues at hand and to do your best to avoid reinforcing limiting stereotypes. If we can do this, even on an individual level, slowly but surely we can reject the conventional and misleading perceptions about gender and music. Now, how do we //really// change things? Sugar Snow front woman Simone Berk believes that “the only way to stop being thought of as ‘girl musicians’ is by sheer volume. The more women that are involved in music, the more of the norm that will become.” We cannot change the situation overnight, but something we //can// do immediately is to embrace who we are and not be afraid to go against the grain. Women musicians, in all their great diversity, have one thing in common: gender. By putting ourselves out there and working hard in a segment of society traditionally reserved for men, we are making a difference. By choosing how to define ourselves rather than succumbing to outside pressure, we are making a difference.

Works Cited

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Berk, Simone. Email interview. 10 May 2011.

Carpenter, Susan. "Sex, Leather, Rock'n'Roll: It's a Matter of Reputation." Los Angeles Times 6 Aug. 2006. SIRS Knowledge Source. Web. 27 Feb. 2011.

Edmonds, Ben, et al. [|“100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”] Rolling Stone. Web. 18 Feb. 2011.

Feigenbaum, Anna. “'Some Guy Designed This Room I'm Standing in': Marking Gender in Press Coverage of Ani DiFranco.” Popular Music. Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jan., 2005), pp. 37-56. Cambridge University Press. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.

Gill, Chris. "Joan Jett: the original riot grrrl keeps it pure." Guitar Player 12 Oct. 1994: 10. General OneFile. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.

Gordon, George N. [|“Communication.”] Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 2 May 2011.

Groce, Stephen B., and Margaret Cooper. "Just Me and the Boys? Women in Local-Level Rock and Roll." Gender and Society 4.2 (1990): 220-229. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.

Guderman, Jennifer. "Rocking Gender: Stereotype and Subversion Among Female Pop Musicians." Faculty Seminar series of Commencement 2010. Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt University, Nashville. 19 May 2010. Lecture. Web. 18 Feb. 2011.

[|“Live Report: Helium/Sleater-Kinney.”] Rolling Stone Music. 30 March 1998. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.

Mar, Anderson. Personal interview. 29 Apr. 2011.

[|“Riot Grrrl Manifesto.”] 1991. Web. 12 May 2011.

[|“Sleater-Kinney: Biography.”] Rolling Stone. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.

Solano, Renee. Personal interview. 3 May 2011.

Willis, Ellen. “Janis Joplin.” Rolling Stone, 1976. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.