Rock’s ‘secret feminism’

I really liked this article by Amanda Marcotte, Nirvana’s Secret Feminism. Not only because it focuses on Nirvana’s, and more specifically, Cobain’s, pro-feminist ethos (something too often overlooked in those umpteen ‘the REAL story of Nirvana!’ features malestream rock journalists like to trot out over and over again); but also because she highlights the profound impact a male rock band can have on the lives of their female fans and the pleasure and validation we can get from listening to their music (something too often overlooked in those umpteen ‘Riot Grrrl RULES! Dude music does nothing for us grrrls!’ features feminists like to trot out over and over again).

But why only focus on Nirvana? Pearl Jam also, “broke with the sexist norms of the era, choosing instead a pro-feminist public stance and song lyrics”. (And like Nirvana have also reached a 20-year anniversary- though not just that marking the release of their seminal album, but the successful 20-year career that followed too.  Don’t burn out before your time. Steel yourself & bust through the bad. Know the joy of survival, of being Alive.)

Songs such as Why Go, Daughter and Betterman are as feminist as anything Bikini Kill ever put to tape.  Eddie Vedder has made pro-choice and anti-rape statements on stage. He scrawled Pro-Choice on his arm during the band’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1992. They’ve Rocked for Choice. They’ve hung out with Gloria Steinem. Toured with and heart Sleater-Kinney (I’d never heard of Sleater-Kinney until I got into PJ. Now I heart them too). And you can find ripostes to this generally fucked-up capitalist war-mongering patriarchal world in which we live in a fair few of the band’s song lyrics and from other stuff they’ve said over the years.

In fact, that whole ‘grunge’/early ‘90s ‘alt rock’/whatever-you- want-to-call-it ‘scene’ was largely pro-feminist. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden too, all consciously set out to do rock ‘n’ roll in a different way to the hair metal bands that dominated rock before them. Out went the shit lite riffs and unoriginal lyrics, and in came guitars that soared and sludged and rattled raw and heavy in a myriad interesting and beautiful ways; songs that struck the whole heart/mind/soul. Here was a bunch of male rock musicians who were openly sensitive and intelligent, who weren’t afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Yet Cobain/Vedder/Cornell were also still quite masculine. But it’s this “man-womanly/woman-manly” (to quote Virginia Woolf) combination, which for me, made ‘grunge’ music, and the men who made it, so different, sexy, inspiring… and feminist.

They don’t make ‘em like that anymore, do they? However, I don’t quite share Marcotte’s view that the more ‘macho’ bands that have entered the rock mainstream following grunge’s demise make no room for the female/feminist rocker. According to Marcotte, the likes of Slipknot, Metallica and Limp Bizkit, unlike Nirvana (& co.), are ““no girls allowed”-style bands”. Whilst I agree that the sound of these bands and the masculinities they perform are more macho (and Limp Bizkit’s attitudes towards women far from progressive), I don’t think they send the message: “no girls allowed.” 

Go to any Slipknot/Metallica/Limp Bizkit/other all-male heavy rock band show and you’ll find girls in the mosh pit: screaming, dancing, singing, head banging, moshing, crying, smiling; feeling fuckin’ strong and empowered and excited and Alive because up there on that stage is a band making the fastest/hardest/loudest/cacophonous noise, the only noise that seems to sum up and spit out what she’s feeling inside, that encapsulates all that’s fucked-up about everyone and everything in this world. In this music, this ‘macho-manliness’, she finds release, because it sounds like the inside of her head, it speaks to her, and gives her a voice, a sense of her own identity. It sets her free. Therefore, go to any Slipknot/Metallica/Limp Bizkit/other all male-heavy rock band show and you’ll see feminism in action.

When feminists say that certain rock bands are ‘no-girls allowed’ they’re not just warning women of the sexism they may encounter should they listen to them. They are also, in a more subtle way, warning women off those bands full stop. We’re effectively saying, ‘don’t listen to [insert all-male band here], they’ve got nothing to say to us, you should listen to [insert all-female band here] instead.’ In other words, we end up sounding like feminist police. And in the process we ignore and silence those female fans and musicians who do take part in the more heavy/metal/’macho’ sub-genres of rock, who may have gravitated to those genres precisely because there was something in the heaviness/macho-ness of the music that they liked and could identify with.

After all, ‘macho’ bears no intrinsic relation to ‘male’. Women can be macho. And macho doesn’t have to be oppressive or domineering or sexist. When ‘macho’ is performed in rock, it’s often just a sound, a roar, that’s used to capture and give vent to some of those strong and uncomfortable feelings and frustrations all us human beings experience, which may have nothing at all to do with hating on women. It’s just another form of self-expression and one which women can also experience and enjoy.

And besides, there are some male rock bands around today – Muse, Mastodon, and fuck it, I’ll include Metallica here too (and that’s just the bands beginning with ‘M’) – who do manage, invoking that grunge spirit, to fuse their masculinity, intelligence, and ear for a wistful melody, to create meaningful, interesting music that rocks bloody hard and bloody good. 

But of course these bands don’t come together under one ‘scene’ a la grunge. I think it’s unlikely we’ll enjoy another era of pro-feminist rock like that we experienced in the early ‘90s.  Music scenes come about differently these days; they’re so much more fragmented and transient. And as Marcotte’s article points out, rock music doesn’t have such a hold on the cultural mainstream anymore. The rock music that is the most popular seems to be the sort that has the least to say, is the least challenging. Mainstream pop culture also has less time than it did in previous decades for anything potent or political, particularly when it comes to music. Media has got more commercial, and consequently more conservative. We could see that as a shame; there’s so much that needs to be said and protested given the state of the world right now and yet there’s little opportunity for someone to be able to come forward and sing something. Although it’s hard to break through into the mainstream, with meaningful music, a meaningful message, without it eventually getting twisted, diluted, and all the meaning snuffed out of it.  That’s what happened to ‘grunge’/early ‘90s ‘alt rock’/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

Despite this though, there is still good, heartfelt rock music out there to discover and enjoy; that which came before, that which is around now, and that which is to come; rock music that does, and always will, harbour a secret feminism.

~

Pearl Jam – Daughter

“She holds the hand that holds her down/She will rise above…. oooooh!!”