Girl Power?

It has come to my attention that all female doesn’t always add up to all good. In the aftermath of girl power and girls kick ass, riot grrls and so on, I have noticed a few annoying stereotypes and certain exclusions. Now when I have been asked in the past whether or not I consider myself a feminist two things come to my brain, 1) None of your frickin business and 2) yeah stupid, have you met me. I suppose I became acquainted but did not perhaps fully grasp the feminist movement when I was still a young girl living with my family in Cincinnati. Although she was a stay-at-home-mom, my mother was super into Gloria Steinham; she even named her station wagon Gloria in honor of this iconic woman. She preached to both my sister and me about not settling for any man just to have a man and to be self-sufficient. As a result my sister and I both have grown up to be strong independent women. However, when I read that statement why does it sound cliché and well fucking boring? Have we reached a pivotal moment in time in which women need to reinvent what it means to be a woman? Could it be that now we finally have a black first lady we might re-think beauty, independence, charm, and the demeanor of women? Or are we all just fooling ourselves and know that although feminism has created, in most parts of the Western world, the female’s lawful right to sue the pants off of abusive husbands, bosses, dad’s, brothers, etc, that in our hearts and souls, at least straight girls, we really want stand up and admit that yes, I need a man that challenges me, has a sense of humor, is brilliant but what we really want is some dude that can and will fuck the living shit out of us when we’ve a bad day, a good day or just for the fuck of it (pun intended).

Now this brings to me to my straight girl rambling point, all female does not always add up to all good. For example, as a musician I search for performance opportunities for my all girl band – festivals, venues, gallery openings, house parties, etc. In my search I have come across the occasional all female festival or ladies night. My immediate reaction is cool! Sign us up, that is until further research is carried out. I can confidently point out that the result of my research will be the all female festival or ladies night consisting of solo performances from weepy acoustic guitar players or unplugged. My first reaction is where the fuck is bat shit crazy Courtney when you need her? Often times the logo or artwork representing said estrogen festival (my band in Portland, OR actually did play at a festival with the aforementioned moniker) is some vapid airy representation of the female. However, if we take a quick peak at the more ‘hard’ rock all pussy fests we get ladies that either haven’t played guitar until at that moment or talented musicians railing on the oppressive patriarch. What you also witness, are there are few men in the audience, either they have resisted the show in fear of having their balls removed or screechy annoying vocals ain’t their thang! Also, at a lot of these music gatherings, boys are the second-class citizens; and we all know how much men would love that feeling.

Nonetheless, I am a fan of both the airy acoustic guitar songstress and the lesser trained do-it-yourself rocker. What I find perplexing is why can’t these two genres all play together? Can’t we all just get along? In excluding men to participate in performances, knitting circles, book clubs or whatever, I feel that women are trying to manage a bond, understand themselves without the ingrained lesson of going out of our way to support and serve the men, to basically do what we do. However, if this is the point why is it then that the biggest subject is about men? Why are all the top 40 divas hot and “singing” their hearts out about love and loss of some damn man? Or why are the rockers that are doing it so much for themselves feel the need to consistently remind us about the oppressive man, you know that dude that we came here to get away from? It’s similar when a bunch of Black folks get together and all we do is piss and moan about white folks. I suppose it is just what we do to live in our reality and discern relations. Just wanted to get that off me chest.

by: creampie