Let’s face it dudefriends, being a guy’s a pretty good life. We can piss just about anywhere we want (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=gavin%20mcinnes%20piss&fp=1&cad=b), we don’t get all crampy once a month, and probably most of all, our modern society is pretty heavily slanted towards the patriarchy. All in all, life’s pretty peachy. ‘Specially if you’re white and straight (but more on that some other time…). It can be pretty easy to forget all this though just listening to Sabbath and bopping along all cluelessly. But every once in a while, we’re reminded that, HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT, THERE’S A WHOLE OTHER FUCKING SEX OUT THERE! AND SOME OF ‘EM LIKE/PLAY METAL! This is exactly the fucking problem.
Now for a dude who listens to mostly punk and metal I’m extremely lucky. In NYC, we have an amazingly gender diverse heavy music crowd and it’s, sometimes, easy to forget that in the rest of the world, this isn’t always the case. In fact, even in our own community, you’d be pretty fucking hard pressed to find a show in which more than 20% of audience are women/girls/ladies/female/Iobviouslynevertookagenderstudiescoursesorry. That being said, a ton of bands in any of the bazillion subgenres of punk and metal are fronted by or contain female members. So why is this such a big fucking deal to us who deem ourselves “worthy” to write about music?
While speaking to a friend of mine who plays in many amazing bands (I’m going to keep the name to myself for now), she has constantly mentioned her utter disgust with the metal press in that, no matter what she does, the fact that she is a woman is ALWAYS mentioned when speaking about her band. While they may mention that the band plays killer music, or that the guitar player rips, or that her vocals are some of the heaviest around, they always feel it necessary to mention the seemingly irrelevant fact that she’s a she.
This got me thinking about the way I write and if I do this or not. In fact, in the past I have made note of female band members. Not always but on occasion. According to my friend, it’s NEVER necessary or even appropriate to mention this fact. Her argument is that regardless of how positive the review is, it’s still saddled with a big, glaring, asshole of a qualifier. In other words, it’ll always, at some level, be “good for a chick band man…” not just, “good.”
Now, whether you agree with that or not, it is a valid point. Thus, this brings me to the question part of the article. When writing about women in the context of metal, is it appropriate to mention the gender of the performer? More specifically to make a big deal of it. Personally, I say no. Discuss.
mattack
May 13, 2011 at 7:12 pm
I think it’s up to women to decide… and two women have spoken. I’m listening to what they have to say.
I agree with Meghan, use proper pronouns when appropriate, but it sounds like you shouldn’t make a big deal of it.
Meghan
May 13, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Awesome article Jack…and definitely something that needs to be discussed. While I think that mentioning that a member of the band is a “she” is fine, as long as you would have said “he” in the same place, I agree that making some kind of big deal about it is not cool. Being a woman who has does a lot of the same things as men do and beat them at it, I have found that some (or a lot of) guys make a big deal out of me being a girl because it makes them feel less competitive with me – I did better than them because they were having an “off” day. So if a band is “good for a chick band,” then other guys in bands, guys who are into metal/punk or whatever, guys who may be insecure about being compared to a woman, will feel like they always will have one up on the women just because they have a dick. I have to say to those dudes whose asses have been whipped by a woman in music, sports, work or anything in life – we are all human, don’t take it as an insult! It’s a new millennium for fucks sakes. Thanks for thinking about this concept & writing about it.