One of the most amazing things I saw was, without question, the screening of the Wonder Women! : the Untold Story of American Heroines documentary.

I’d never heard of it before to be honest, which is hardly surprising as it’s an independent release (no screening near you? Organise one – there’s a link at the bottom of this post!). It’s basically a visual look at the intersections of Women Woman iconography and certain aspects of Second Wave American feminism.

Did you know that Wonder Woman was regarded by quite a few feminists as the ‘face’of Second Wave American feminism? Neither did I. Quite frankly, being a Marvel girl rather than DC, I’d always thought of Wonder Woman as one of the more tame, conservative superheroes. Didn’t she spend most of her time being tied up?

Image from Flickr.com user bbaltimore, used under Creative Commons.

I’m now going to recount my new and shiny understanding of Wonder Woman, as gleaned from the documentary through a vague haze of alcohol. Bear with me.

The iconography of Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman, it turns out, is fairly awesome. She was developed during World War II, and was therefore off fighting the Nazis (alongside Captain America? That bit wasn’t very clear) after realising that she had to go off and save America. Because that’s what awesome heroes did. She even had to win some sort of Olympiad before she was able to do it! And then she fought some Nazis, and some criminals, and in the 50s this was deemed to be DREADFUL. So she was rewritten as having given up her powers. During this period she found she wanted to make cakes, and opened a beauty parlour. OF COURSE. Because nothing says ‘superhero’ like CUPCAKES!

Anyway, along came Second Wave feminism, looking for a face for the recently-launched Ms magazine. And there was poor Wonder Woman, an icon in need of reclaiming. Off came the apron and on went on the magic bracelets!

SURELY IT IS TIME FOR THE 70S?

I won’t recount the entire documentary. Suffice to say that when the 1970s and 1980s kicked off, along with them came a whole slew of female heroines, from Cagney and Lacey, Charlie’s Angels and Bionic Woman, straight through to the live-action Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter.

Here, have a photo of her being awesome:

Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. Photo from Flicker user shaunwong.

Here are some other 1970s (& 1980s) heroines.

Cagney & Lacey. Image from kaksplus.fi.

Charlie’s Angels, 1977. Image from Wikimedia Commons .

Notice anything?

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley. Image from sabotagetimes.com.

Ripley vs Van Damme

The 1980s also gave us hyper-masculinity along the lines of Van Damme, Schwarzenegger and Stallone. It also gave us Ellen Ripley and (in 1991 admittedly, therefore just in the 1990s) Sarah Connor. There are a bunch of others. The 1980s were pretty awesome for strong female heroines, which is a sentence I never thought I’d be writing. When I first saw Terminator 2 as a little girl, I didn’t even know that women could do chin-ups!

Grrrl Power dominoes

As well as the iconography of Wonder Woman herself, the documentary looked at the development of Grrrl Power. We are taken through the original use of the term through interviews with Kathleen Hanna, starting back with Riot Grrrl, and its appropriation by the Spice Girls into something commercial.

I’m not going to depress you by taking you through the deaths of all the ‘strong female characters’ on television in 2001. I think those of us in the UK were somewhat sheltered through the impact of that, having our reception of those shows delayed by several weeks or even months. We therefore did not experience their deaths as the American viewers would have: one after the other, falling down like dominoes in 2001.

Back to Wonder Woman…

Like this, only AWESOME.

… and to her fans, ages 2–99. In the documentary, there are interviews with small children and the role Wonder Woman has played in their lives. There are interviews with activists – up to and including Gloria Steinem – and their perspectives on how Wonder Woman influenced Second Wave (and in some case Third Wave) feminism – and vice versa. There are perspectives on women-saving-women and the creation of Wonder Woman Day. There’s even a Wonder-Woman-on-a-string-with-motor, making her fly around and around on a child’s ceiling. How awesome is that? I want one!

Not your grandmother’s feminism

Now let’s talk about what wasn’t there. The film isn’t marketed as a history of Second Wave Feminism, nor even the (entire) history of Wonder Woman. That’s important, because the intersections the film is talking about are intersections with white, heterosexual, cis feminism. It therefore falls down significantly on the feminism movement outside of that pretty narrowly defined range.

It was also a bit dispiriting to not have at least a mention that the original name for Ms. magazine was Sojourner. There is also little mention of the subversion of the Wonder Woman image and iconography outside of radfem activism.

That said, the film doesn’t pretend that it is in any way comprehensive, or representative of all feminism movements. And, as a look at the history of Wonder Woman and how she was reclaimed in the radfem part of Second (and Third) Wave American feminism… well, it’s pretty awesome.

Frankly, it’s worth watching for the interviews with her tiny modern-day fans alone. There is something deeply heartening about hearing a child draw strength from a feminist icon, however corrupted and reinterpreted that image has been over the years.

Not convinced? Have a look at the trailer:

See? Awesome.

• In the highly likely event that there are no screenings near you, you can contact the Outreach Coordinator at Wonder Women to arrange one.

‘Are there grrrls in the majority world?’ I wondered. The answer is yes, and they rock. In fact I’ve made a Majority World Riot Grrrl playlist which can be found for your delectation. Big shout out to Riot Grrrl Berlin and their fantastic compilations, on which lots of these bands feature.

Nepal

The first band I found was an anarchafeminist outfit from Nepal called Tank Girl. Nepal has a deeply traditional patriarchal society; marital rape was outlawed only in 2006 and still carries just a six month sentence. Rape survivors are often ostracised, having ‘brought shame’ to their family and wider community. Dalit (or ‘low-caste’) women face additional discrimination and extremely high levels of violence.

One of Tank Girl’s members, Sareena Rai, is involved in two other feminist DIY punk bands, Rai Ko Ris and Naya Faya, and works to help Dalit women to protect themselves from gender-based violence, delivering self-defence training in her house. Which is pretty awesome.

Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia

I found a few more Asia-Pacific riot grrrl bands, including the adorable Fatal Posporos from the Philippines and Pretty Riot from Indonesia. As well as bands Hellsister and Dance On Your Grave, the scene in Malaysia was (and hopefully still is) large enough to support a zine distro called Grrrl:Rebel. “Through zines, people in the scene are much more exposed to stuffs that were somewhat limited to them and the public before” founder Carol told GrrrlZines.net in 2001. “In countries like Malaysia and Singapore, you would get arrested if you write any articles that can be considered as threats to the government.”

It’s comments like that which I find so remarkable, dropped into interviews about the role of girls in the punk scene and the best local bands which could kind of be about anywhere.

Africa and the Middle East

While I couldn’t find any trace of a riot grrrl scene in Africa, I did happen upon a 2011 documentary called Punk In Africa which sounds good. And in the Middle East, grrrls are thin on the ground, but judging from the cracking MidEastTunes website there are plenty of women active in dark metal and goth, including Bahrain’s first all-girl metal band Scarlet Tear.

Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil

South America does seem to have a sizeable riot grrrl base – my cursory search turned up bands in Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. Le Butcherettes from Mexico are definitely worth a listen, and I’d like to find more by a Venezuelan skapunk outfit called 7 Potencias who have a song called ‘Feminista de Bolsillo’, which I’m led to believe translates as ‘Pocket Feminist’.

The biggest scene seems to be in Brazil, which boasts a huge list of bands and artists, including Dominatrix, Siete Armas and Bertha Lutz, with her irresistibly-titled track ‘Feminism? Yes Please!’.

Bit of context: while Brazil is the world’s sixth largest economy, there is still vast inequality. And although it currently has a female President for the first time in Dilma Rouseff, women make up just 8.6% of the seats in Parliament. Abortion is legal only to save a woman’s life or in cases of rape, and in 2010, it was reported that 200,000 women a year are hospitalized for complications of illegal abortion.

The reasons behind riot grrrl’s popularity in Brazil are even the subject of an academic paper by Calla Hummel, who recognises the political significance and adaptability of this particular bit of shouty youth culture:

Brazilian riot grrrl is one of the sites where Western cultural hegemony is being called into question… As it moves across borders, riot grrrl becomes a form of transnational feminism – and grrrls must address how ideas and material originating in a given locale may resonate, change, or delegitimize ideas and work in another.

Gender inequality is a global problem which varies in its expression across different cultural contexts. It’s not an ‘over there’ issue, but in some places it’s more severe than in others. Similarly, riot grrrl anywhere is awesome, but the courage and kickassness of the grrrls in these bands is pretty inspiring.

As a band member called Isabella quoted by Hummel says:

As long as we keep getting letters from the middle of the jungle, from a tiny, three person town in the Amazon, from some girl saying, ‘Feminism saved my life, thank you,’ we will keep doing it.

• This article originally appeared in a zine put together for Sara and James‘ club night Grrrls Just Wanna Have Fun.
• Tiny Note From The Ed: Happy International Women’s Day from everybody at BadRep Towers! Please consider donating to WomanKind Worldwide today.

Girl Germs is our DIY feminist, queer and trans* friendly club night, and soon-to-be record label. We started in 2008, as part of our university’s Feminist Week. We hired out the student union bar, and suddenly we had four bands booked. We had a lot of help from the staff at the union, and our friends in the Feminist Society blew up loads of balloons for us. And on the night, people turned up! To a club night that we arranged!

When we graduated, we decided that we wanted to do it again. We were a bit cautious, though, as suddenly we were dealing with real venues and it was just the two of us (and our friend Tukru, with her amazing zine distro). We put on several nights in Camden with no bands where we’d DJ for hours, sometimes getting our friends to help us out when we got tired. Our little venue was always full, and everybody left tired and sweaty.

Our latest hand-drawn flyer

But it was during the preparations for Ladyfest Ten that we plucked up the courage to put on another full-scale night with bands. We managed to put on three of our favourite bands and organise DJs, stalls and even cake. We’d somehow pulled it off again! The place was packed, and we were exhausted, but ecstatic.

The plan was to build on the success of that night, but mental health issues and a period of unemployment and geographical separation meant it was impossible. We’re back next month though, and more excited than ever.

We’ve learned a lot through running Girl Germs. But the biggest thing is: running a club night is easy. Most promoters don’t want you to know that, because they don’t want you to try it yourself. We’re poor, unsociable and uncool. We spend a lot of time talking to our cat. If we can do it, so can you.

You don’t need a lot of money

We both work really hard in low-paid jobs. We don’t have trust funds, or any disposable income to speak of at all, really. A night can be as expensive or cheap as you make it. There are very few upfront costs, because bands and venues can be paid on the night from your door takings. It’s also kind of a waste to spend loads of money on fancy flyers, because the most effective promotion now happens online through social media. We spend a little money on photocopying beforehand, but that’s about it.

You don’t need ‘connections’

To have connections, you’d probably need to network, and who wants to do that? We don’t have a little black book with useful emails in. We just write to bands we like and venues we think might want us, and ask nicely. It’s much easer that way, especially if you’re shy. Hell, we barely have the courage to speak to bands when they’re at Girl Germs ready to play.

You don’t need technical knowledge

DJing is easy, and the best way to learn is by doing. We learned on the job, and it never went that badly wrong. As well as that, bands will let you know what they need, and venues will understand their requests. Your job is to be the go-between. If you have any questions, bands and sound people are always happy to answer. That’s their job, after all. Generally venues will have most of the gear, and bands expect to bring extras themselves and sometimes share with other acts on the bill.

You don’t need to spend oodles of time on it

You won’t need to give up your day job to give yourself enough time to do this. We have very little free time in the evenings after work, but it’s enough to get things done.

In the lead-up, you’ll mainly be emailing people and drumming up support on Twitter and Facebook. If you have a smartphone, you can do this on the go (or under your desk at work). You might need an evening to write a press release, or an hour or so to set up a Facebook page and event, but it’s all manageable if you’re a little bit organised about it.

You won’t need to beg venues and bands to give you a chance

Venues need cub nights, and bands need gigs. People need somewhere to go for a dance on a Saturday night. These people aren’t doing you a favour, and most of them won’t act like they are. Venues have always been helpful and supportive to us, and bands have been excited to play. As long as you let people know what they’re doing and when, you’ll be fine.

So, there it is. Easy, huh?

We’d love more club nights to go to, run by like-minded people. Find your own theme, and give it a go. There’s almost nothing more satisfying than watching a room full of people dancing and knowing that you got them there.

If you want to know anything in more detail, or you have questions, you can email us at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to help.

• Lydia and Laura run Girl Germs from their flat in South East London, which they share with a large, angry cat. As well as organising feminist dance parties, they enjoy bikes, knitting, gardening and cooking squashes (Laura) and writing, furniture, Tarantino movies and Wotsits (Lydia). Their love for Beyoncé is deep and profound.
• Girl Germs on Facebook
• The next event: 9th Feb 2013 at Power Lunches, featuring My Therapist Says Hot Damn, Loveover, Woolf and zines from Vampire Sushi!
• @GirlGermsLondon

This (mildly NSFW) video is кисья ересь (Heresy of Little Cats), by the Russian electro-punk band Barto:

As a non-speaker of Russian who hasn’t found the lyrics anywhere, I’m sure there’s a lot I’m not getting, but I like the song, the band are pretty admirable, and I like the video’s satirical emphasis on the patriarchal intertwining of political and religious authorities – the formal alliance of Putin’s government and the Russian Orthodox Church, making it possible for civil disobedience to be framed as blasphemy, was a point of contention highlighted by the Pussy Riot trial.

I found the song via this post, which discusses the relatively muted response by the Russian underground music scene to the group’s trial and imprisonment. It also corrects the impression of Pussy Riot as (merely?) a feminist punk band, when they are more a product of the intersection between political activism and performance art:

As a matter of fact Pussy Riot, although calling themselves a punk-band and using the sign of punk in their performances, never belonged to the Russian punk scene. They consider themselves as art-actionists, clearly place themselves in the context of contemporary Russian actionism, quoting the names of Prigov, Brener, Kulik and other art-provocateurs of the 1990s.

So Pussy Riot’s frequently mentioned connection with riot grrrl has more to do with the latter’s existence as a DIY subculture involving zines, art, détournement and activism, than with music alone. Which is fair enough; back in the 90s, one of the odder of Courtney Love’s swipes at Kathleen Hanna, in fact, was that “She’s not really in a band… She’s a political activist who took a bunch of women’s studies classes.” On the subject of Pussy Riot, Hanna herself had this to say:

What if people all over the world started their own performance groups, bands, art collectives, etc… and called them things like Pussy Riot Olympia. Pussy Riot, Athens Greece, Pussy Riot Paris, etc….And maybe if this trial turns out as the prosecutors want it to, with the women getting at least 3 years, we all play benefits and go to Russia en masse under the banner that we are all Pussy Riot, Yoko Ono could be in Pussy Riot, Patti Smith could be wearing a mask next to a troupe of girls from Tennesee storming the Cathedral of Christ the Savior screaming “We are all Pussy Riot!!!”

As I wrote in February, it makes sense to consider Pussy Riot in the context of the former Soviet Union’s long and fascinating history of political protest coalescing around avant garde art and music, especially punk. The Western media, perhaps understandably, tended instead to present the band in more straightforward and simplistic terms – rendering them more comprehensible to a Western audience, sure, but often in a less than helpful manner. I’d been hoping someone would pick up on the patronising and infantilising aspects of much of the media presentation of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, and, in this article, Sarah Kendzior nails it:

Imagine this: The three men sit in court, awaiting their verdict. The youngest, a experienced dissident described by the media as a “sultry sex symbol” with “Angelina Jolie lips”, glances at his colleague, an activist praised by the Associated Press for his “pre-Raphaelite looks”. Between them sits a third man, whose lack of glamour has led the New Republic to label him “the brain” and deem his hair a “poof of dirty blonde frizz”. The dissidents – or “boys” as they are called in headlines around the world – have been the subject of numerous fashion and style profiles ever since they first spoke out against the Russian government. “He’s a flash of moving color,” the New York Times writes approvingly about their protests, “never an individual boy.” If this sounds ridiculous, it should – and not only because I changed the gender… Pussy Riot identifies as feminist, but you would never know it from the Western media, who celebrate the group with the same language that the Russian regime uses to marginalize them. The three members of Pussy Riot are “girls”, despite the fact that all of them are in their twenties and two of them are mothers. They are “punkettes”, diminutive variations on a 1990s indie-rock prototype that has little resemblance to Pussy Riot’s own trajectory as independent artists and activists.

Of course, as Kendzior also points out, Pussy Riot have far more pressing concerns than being mischaracterized in the press. But:

Pussy Riot also tells us a lot about how we see non-Western political dissent in the new media age, and could suggest a habit of mischaracterizing their grave mission in terms that feel more familiar but ultimately sell the dissidents short: youthful rebellion, rock and roll, damsels in distress.

A lot of this sentiment is familiar: an impulse to treat protest in which women, particularly young women, are prominent, as fun, flippant, and fundamentally unserious. It’s the reverse of the censorious and sensationalist ‘Rage of the Girl Rioters’ response to the 2010 UK student protests. In the case of Pussy Riot, arguments for their sympathetic treatment are often explicitly predicated on the power imbalance involved – they are ‘just’ ordinary women (or indeed ‘girls’), what threat to the state can they possibly pose? – which surely entrenches the idea of women as both relatively powerless and harmless, rather than enabling any sort of feminist empowerment. Away from such frustrating portayals, however, there’s something to be said for the earlier stages of Pussy Riot’s trajectory, which offer examples both of how music can form part of a wider oppositional movement and for how women’s protest can be collective and anonymous, with no need of iconic or martyred figureheads.

And yes, I do realise this post can be summarised as: “Pussy Riot? Preferred their earlier work, before they got so commercial”. So it goes.

They decline to reveal the smallest details, aiming to maintain total secrecy. They will say only that most of the band members met at the small protests held by Russia’s once-feeble opposition, from monthly illegal demonstrations calling for the right to assembly to banned gay pride marches. Their average age is 25. They are hardcore feminists. Most studied the humanities in university. They won’t detail their day jobs.
– Guardian, 2nd February 2012

Pussy Riot, like the Sex Pistols, have a name designed to make headlines, and a bit more political substance to back up the sensationalism. Formed in Moscow last September, this offshoot of Russia’s complex and fractured political scene has come to prominence in the UK media in the context of protests against political corruption which have been gaining in volume and intensity after parliamentary elections last December. In mid-January, one of the collective’s impromptu guerrilla gigs, taking place on Red Square opposite the Kremlin, ended with its members detained by police.

Laura Barton in the Guardian, picking up on the band’s citing of Bikini Kill as an inspiration, offers a slightly short-sighted view of 90s Riot Grrrl as an antecedent for the expression of ‘an alternative female voice’. While the group clearly do reference Riot Grrrl’s ‘tone of wild irreverence’, it also makes sense to consider Pussy Riot in the context of the former Soviet Union’s long and fascinating history of political protest coalescing around avant garde art and music, especially punk. Adam Curtis’ recent blog is an interesting attempt to make sense of this sort of determinedly oppositional culture which has been notable by its relative absence from the UK’s current wave of socio-political protest. Similarly, the clash of sartorial signifiers which Pussy Riot provide by combining miniskirts and stockings with ski-masks and balaclavas could be a legacy of Riot Grrl too, but as a practical measure it has as much in common with other Anonymous-style contemporary protest movements, not to mention the general history of masking and disguise in protest.

Russia does have a long tradition of women in protest, notably the 1917 revolution in which women played a prominent part, encouraged by the intersection of socialism with many of the goals of women’s liberation. Pussy Riot cite this ‘deep tradition… of gender and revolution – we’ve had amazing women revolutionaries.’ They add that ‘the revolution should be done by women… For now, they don’t beat or jail us as much’. This assertion ties in with historical debates on the ability of women to take part in protest or civil disobedience with a greater degree of impunity than men – an ideal which isn’t always borne out by the treatment of female protesters.

Contemporary Russian politics – like any – are not a straightforward matter, and the extent of Pussy Riot’s relevance and representativeness remains to be seen. But in a context where growing and disparate opposition groups are encountering heavy and often violent repression across the world, the ways in which women participate in protest, and the styles of self-expression they employ, are always worth noting.

So, I’m supposed to buy her some noodles and a book and sit around listening to chicks who can’t play their instruments, right?

– 10 Things I Hate About You

As a twelve-year-old in a post-industrial backwater, I discovered punk a long time after the fact, but when I did I took to it like a mohawked and safety-pinned duck to water. With the snobbery and omnicognisance of youth, however, I quickly developed a doctrinaire approach whereby if ‘punk’ songs weren’t short, sharp, and shouty, I didn’t want to know. Man, did London Calling fuck with my head, with its rackety punk take on reggae and soul and funk and lovers’ rock and, god forbid, jazz. When I first heard London Calling I swore never to listen to a good two-thirds of it again because it clearly wasn’t Real Punk. Like all teenage girls, I was insufferable.

However narrow my definition of punk, part of my love for it stemmed from the women involved. From The Slits, Gaye Advert, and X-Ray Spex to Debbie Harry’s pop-punk perfection, and I even liked some of Siouxsie’s dubious proto-goth warbling. But the Raincoats, a London-spawned collective built around the partnership of Gina Birch and Ana da Silva, never crossed my radar.

As I got deeper into exploring music in its socio-political context (told you I was an insufferable teenager), my compulsive reading of Greil Marcus and Simon Reynolds and the 90s music press made me aware, to a grudging extent, that it was what came after punk that really shook things up – the fragmented, untrained, scraps of mad genius that formed the postpunk movement, in which punk’s long-term revolutionary potential really bore fruit – or so I read, suspiciously. One of the most lauded of postpunk bands were the Raincoats. So I tried, but at the age of thirteen or so I never could click with them or their kind of folk-punk-gypsy-jazz-spoken-word-world-music tapestry. What was the relationship this band allegedly bore to punk? Where were the tightly-wound two-minute blasts of guitar scree and rants about boredom, alienation, nihilism, concrete and bad sex? The Raincoats’ hesitant, eerie, self-effacing, gentle and loose-knit stylings were something I had no patience for and no sympathy with. I didn’t get it, and the suggestion that this was music which, as a female, I should get, I found frankly offensive. It said nothing to me about my life.

I don’t really know anything about The Raincoats except that they recorded some music that has affected me so much that, whenever I hear it I’m reminded of a particular time in my life when I was (shall we say) extremely unhappy, lonely, and bored. If it weren’t for the luxury of putting on that scratchy copy of The Raincoats’ first record, I would have had very few moments of peace.

– Kurt Cobain, 1993

A couple of years later, as contemporary grunge and riot grrrl joined vintage punk in my affections, Kurt Cobain’s referencing of the Raincoats made me give them a second chance, or at least a second listen. This time around I could discern something I could identify with, something that was tangled up with the altered territory of adolescence. The burgeoning horror of growing up, the all-encompassing anxiety over my looks, my body, my clothes, was something the Raincoats now spoke to. There was an obvious prototype for riot grrrl’s anatomising of feminine neurosis and feminist analysis of the personal and political. The struggle to occupy public space with confidence rather than fear, the baffling revelation that falling in love can be more nauseating angst than fairytale bliss, the terrifying tricks that biology and psychology can play on you – it was all here, just expressed through suggestion rather than stridency.

Being a woman is both feeling female, expressing female and also (for the time being at least) reacting against what a woman is told she ‘should’ be like. This contradiction creates chaos in our lives and, if we want to be real, we have to neglect what has been imposed on us, we have to create our lives in a new way. It is important to try and avoid as much as possible playing the games constantly proposed to you.

– Ana da Silva, vocals/guitar, The Raincoats

The untried, experimental nature of a lot of postpunk music seemed particularly suited to the Raincoats’ female-centred concerns. Punk did a great deal to remove barriers of precedent and technical expertise, creating a space for musical and lyrical uncharted territory. The Raincoats had sounded so off-puttingly alien to me at first because they were– their tentative, unfamiliar steps towards music were a groundbreaking way of doing things.

Sure, women had been singers and musicians before now, but even Patti Smith remained reliant on male musicians and male-defined musical styles to back up her creative ambition. By contrast, the Raincoats’ self-titled début was described by Vivien Goldman as the first ‘women’s rock’ album, its deconstruction of traditional forms pioneering an arresting and persuasive form of rock without the cock. Their song writing was fresh and original, and so was their mode of dress and performance – a refusal of showbiz glamour which saw the band perform in outfits which clashed colours and styles, deconstructed fashion and female aesthetics, and certainly weren’t put together with an appreciative male gaze in mind.

It was The Raincoats I related to most. They seemed like ordinary people playing extraordinary music… They had enough confidence to be vulnerable and to be themselves without having to take on the mantle of male rock/punk rock aggression or the typical female as sex symbol avec irony or sensationalism.

– Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth

In a sense, I’m still getting into the Raincoats – they aren’t a go-to listen for me, they feature on few of the playlists I throw together, and I rarely want to stick them on at parties. They’re not a band I often want to listen to, but occasionally they’re a band I feel I need to listen to. At any rate, they’ve inspired bands, particularly women in bands, from Sonic Youth to The Gossip, and there’s little doubt of their significance, interest and influence. If further proof were needed, their version of the Kinks’ Lola stands alongside the Slits’ recasting of Heard it Through the Grapevine as one of the best boundary-blurring covers ever. It’s taken me a long time but I’m happy to admit that The Raincoats are, very gently, punk as fuck.

• The Raincoats’ second album, Odyshape, was reissued on 5 September
• www.theraincoats.net

*

Rhian Jones also blogs at Velvet Coalmine.

Image source: www.towntalk.co.uk

We like it when people we think are cool come out as feminists, or even just express views broadly in line with feminist ideas. It makes us feel cool. And if we can’t feel cool, we don’t wanna be part of the revolution. More seriously, it’s important to celebrate that folk come to feminism through all sorts of different routes and in their own time.

Whenever a person has a feminist revelation of the sort that we might think is obvious (such as the lack of good female role models in certain music genres), instead of going “well, duh?!” and getting cross, here at BR Towers we go “hey, yeah! Grab a drink and join the party.”

First up, Jade Puget, guitarist for chart-topping emo-punksters AFI and one half of EBM/dance project Blaqk Audio, realises there are barely any women in his beloved electronica.

I was reading one of my computer/electronic music nerd alert magazines today and I noticed that every one of these acclaimed electronic producers is male. I realized that the electronic music scene is almost completely male-dominated. …. we need a lady-led revolution in the scene, girls making ill breakbeat hardcore, wobbly dubstep basslines, 20 minute psybient epics.

Next, Hayley Williams, lead singer in chart-topping emo-pop-rockers Paramore, declares that she’s researching Riot Grrrl.

After finishing “Charlie Chaplin’s Own Story”.. I’m currently reading this book. Mostly to satisfy my thirst for knowledge on the Riot Grrrl Movement in the 90’s and bands such as Bikini Kill and Bratmobile. But I’m finding more and more that I wish my 13 year old self could’ve read it. Girls, women, ladies: check it out!

Both posts may have been up a little while, but finding them at the same time brought a smile.  I love that both of these excerpts reveal the demand for women past and present in the music business, and that rather than merely noting absences they are positive calls for action, alongside ways to get involved.

• Found Feminism: an ongoing series of images, videos, photos, comics, posters or excerpts – anything really, which shows feminist ideas at work in the everyday world. Send your finds to [email protected]!