'Woman' is not a genre of music: de-novelizing the female musician
Relevant to my life.
THAAAAAAANK YOU
I feel like my thoughts on this walk a fine, yet confusing, line. I mean, when I read stuff like, “So should we never speak about ‘women in music’? Rather, let’s speak about music. Let’s discuss talented artists and bands that are impressive because of what they’re doing, not because a woman is involved” (quoted from the article linked above.) I have knee-jerk reaction of “Ugh!” because, honestly, as enticing as a gender-blind world of music criticism where no one ever talks about how beautiful Annie Clark is in conjunction with a review of her latest album, I also have to say as a girl learning (always with the learning!) to play the guitar, it has been helpful and inspiring to me when women in music are highlighted. As much as I harp on riot grrrl, I think it’s important to remember that bands like Bikini Kill invited women to the front of the crowd not just so they could reclaim that space, but so that women could see other women up on stage ACTUALLY PLAYING INSTRUMENTS. In a world where people, oftentimes women, are told, “You can’t do this” — and sometimes it doesn’t sound like “You can’t do this,” but instead like, “Don’t girls usually play the bass?” or “Is that your boyfriend’s guitar?” or “Do you even know how to change the fuse in that amp?” it can be helpful and empowering to know that other women are out there doing the same thing & doing it well & to their own satisfaction.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate crappy “women in music” journalism too, but I do think it’s important to talk about the fact that women make music — especially because they often face a different set of barriers than men do. I just think we need to change the way that we talk about women who make music.
Very interesting article, and a good point. It reminds me of the very strange thing that happened about two years ago when a group of disperate female solo pop artists/frontwomen (La Roux, Little Boots, Florence Welch and so on) all got grouped together under the label of “women” by the British music press. Now, I’m no fan of any of those artists (although the La Roux album had one or two fun singles), but it’s still a pretty worrying sign that even now, the idea that having multiple female artists gaining attention is something that has to be labelled, or that the act of women making music is somehow so exceptional that “women” can actually become a sodding genre. Bizzare.
