Rock’s ‘secret feminism’ [View all]

[Violet_Crumble]

I found this earlier this evening when I was googling for guitar tabs. It's written by someone called LonerGrrrl and I thought it was pretty good, seeing it involved my favourite band of all time and feminism. I'd always been aware that they'd done Rock For Choice and Eddie wrote an article about reproductive choice, which I'll post if I can dig it up, but I'd never listened to a song like 'Why Go' and picked up that it was in any way pro-feminist, but I blame that on all the mumbling with the lyrics. The video linked to in the blog is a crap version of 'Daughter' so click on the one in this post to get a really awesome version of 'Why Go'

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.

http://lonergrrrl.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/rocks-secret-feminism/