Week 1: The Personal is Political

In one of the early chapters of Women and Popular Music, Sheila Whiteley discusses the interconnectedness between the broader patriarchy which stems across Western society with women’s personal lives: “in reproduction, sexual relationships, the household division of labour, popular cultures and the arts” (45). This interconnectedness was, and still continues to be, one of the major claims and ideas behind feminism. The 1960s, where rebellion against the traditional forms of authority and the status quo in general were being questioned, was also a time when feminism was becoming a major political, social and intellectual movement. Influential thinkers such as Friedan, Firestone and Millett wrote against the biological determinist ideas of Freud, and all argued the socially constructed nature of gender and sexuality (45). Radical feminism, separatist feminism and lesbian feminism seemed to be the best options for seriously undermining patriarchy.

Yet despite the counter-cultural haven the 1960s and 70s are often represented and remembered as, female sexuality still fit very much into the Madonna/whore dichotomy which continues to underlie the representation and construction of women. Does “free love” and having many sexual partners really undermine the “one love” syndrome feminists fought against? Within this whole context, Whiteley brings the discussion to musician Janis Joplin, a notoriously “free wheeling woman” (48) of this important time for feminism. Within the realm of music, are musicians such as Janis Joplin able to seriously undermine the Madonna/whore dichotomy?

***

Until this year, the motto “The personal is political” had never entered my life, let alone meant anything to me.

My educational career began four or five years ago, when upon graduating high school, I did what all the students with “good” grades were doing: applying and getting accepted to one of Canada’s top Universities. The University of Victoria was where I had my first encounter with both post secondary education and Women’s Studies. As a fairly naive, incredibly self-conscious and increasingly lonely 18-year-old student, I took the introductory women studies because it seemed like an easy elective. I don’t remember now if I had come across the phrase, “The personal is political.” I’m sure I must’ve—it’s such a significant phrase within feminist studies. Regardless, I essentially gained nothing from the course; not because of the professor or the course material themselves but mainly because at the time, I was completely caught up with being liked and “respected” by my peers.

Increasingly disillusioned by the post-secondary educational system, where many peers in my dormitory, who wouldn’t bother to get to know anybody who wasn’t a binge-drinking, party hardy, sports enthusiast, maintained higher grade point averages than me, I took solace in my large black headphones and sullen love songs of contemporary pseudo-punk. Without even realizing it, the music I was engrossing myself in was constructing my identity as a woman as defined through patriarchy. Romanticized love songs sung mainly by men, who painted women and relationships as idyllic and perfect.

In taking this course, I’ve learned so much about the power of music in challenging the definition of ‘women’ and structure of women’s lives. Who knew that ‘Sweet Dreams,’ a song I’ve always written off as another cheesy 80s tune, has major significance within feminist music studies? How come I always found the Sex Pistols to be heralded as the major pioneers in punk but not Patti Smith? Are the Spice Girls good role models?

Perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned to question the role of music within my life. Music, so tied up with identity politics, is one of the key ways women can truly discover the meaning of the phrase ‘The Personal is Political.’ It certainly was for me.

Week 2: Music and Identity

In his seminal article, Simon Frith questions the role of music in constructing our individual and social identities. Rather than looking at music as representing a certain identity, such as African-American music representing African-American people and their culture, Frith explores how music “produces” us, “how it creates and constructs an experience – a musical experience, an aesthetic experience – that we can only make sense of by taking on both a subjective and a collective identity” (109). In the view of postmodern cultural theorists such as Frith, identity is viewed as unstable, constructed and most importantly, an on-going process.


The infamous iPod ad...faceless figures for you to identify with

Ultimately, Frith argues how “music constructs our sense of identity through the direct experiences it offers of the body, time and sociability, experiences which enable us to imagine ourselves in imaginative cultural narrative” (124). We imagine ourselves as aligned with the performers of music, as well as other fans of the same song or musician. Through aligning ourselves through the enjoyment of music, we are constructing our identities. Frith argues how music is unique in this process of shaping and reshaping identity because of its role as “the cultural form best able to cross borders - sounds carry across fences and walls and oceans, across classes, races and nations” (125). Music is a part of most people's lives, making it a universal phenomenon for the construction of human identity.

***

The first band I really 'got into' is No Doubt. The ska/pop/rock band's 1995 album 'Tragic Kingdom,' was taped for me by my fifth grade best friend as a birthday present. Although - as I discuss later in my journal Gwen Stefani has gone from a strong female role model to somewhat of a 'sell out' - at the time, in fifth grade, No Doubt's lead vocalist was my hero. One of my favorite songs was 'I'm Just a Girl,' in which Stefani angrily confronts the constraints placed upon younger women:

I'm just a girl

I'm just a girl in the world...

That's all that you'll let me be!

I'm just a girl, living in captivity



My first brush with feminism was through these lyrics, which spoke to me as a realization that girls and women did not have the same freedoms and opportunities as boys and men. I admired Gwen Stefani's agency as the fronts-person of a successful pop band, and using her ability to communicate through music as a way of protest. At the age of eleven, when I was beginning to realize different constraints placed upon women, I strongly identified with Gwen Stefani and her music.

The other day my boss, making friendly conversation, asked me what my favorite kind of music was. I couldn't think of a clear, definitive answer - "Uh...rock I guess?"
Gwen Stefani is no longer my hero. But I think the reason why I no longer identify definitively with a certain artist or genre has got to do with my understanding of identity as socially and culturally constructed as opposed to something that evolves from within. Through my learning, I've also realized that women have been socially constructed as well, and it is essentially impossible to pin down 'woman' as a definitive, all-encompassing identity. Perhaps my uncertainty of musical tastes and my lack of a musical identity is indicative of the instability and uncertainties surrounding human identity.

Week 3: Shut up and Sing

After Dixie Chicks front-woman Natalie Maines infamously stated, “We’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas,” the highest-grossing female band in the United States faced a bombardment of criticism and condemnation from fans, media, and especially from the country music scene they once belonged to. Shut Up and Sing (2006) follows the band’s public controversy and personal lives during the three years following this notorious remark, portraying the Dixie Chicks’ struggles between their positions as major country/pop stars, their personal anti-war sentiments, their roles as mothers and wives, and their love of music. Positioning the women firstly and most prominently as a strong and resilient “sisterhood,” the documentary ultimately shows the Dixie Chicks public and musical comeback from being boycotted and labelled unpatriotic Saddam sympathizers through producing another best-selling record, which musically encompasses much of the aftermath of Maines’ initial comment.

***

I was never a Dixie Chicks fan, but I've gained a lot of respect for the country/pop group since watching Shut Up and Sing. The documentary was pretty corny and predictable, but I thought it did a great job of portraying the struggle the Dixie Chicks went through after expressing their anti-war and anti-Bush sentiments. It seems their position as the all-American country girl group was what the country music scene expected of them, and any movement straying away from that image was unwelcome. It was disappointing to see so much hostility aimed towards the women, simply because of their previous image as country singers with no previous instances of 'shocking' political statements.

The documentary, focusing around the female musicians and their struggle with those who painted them in an unfair light, was especially moving to me at the time of our screening. That week my ex-boyfriend and I had been arguing, and I was feeling especially crabby and blue. Our relationship, despite having romantically ended almost two years ago, has been riddled conflict and hostility. Still silently fuming over an angry e-mail he had sent me early that day, I sat down in our classroom to watch the second-half of the documentary. And despite the overly dramatized nature of the documentary, depicting a scene of Maines singing her heart out for the new album, the lyrics to the song she was singing, 'Not ready to make nice,' made me want to cry.

Forgive - sounds good
Forget - I'm not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I'm still waiting

Although the Dixie Chicks were obviously singing of their ordeal with the public outcry against them, I felt the song spoke to me, as portraying an ordeal many people go through with broken relationships, romantic or otherwise. Like Maines and her fellow Dixie Chicks, I was feeling frustrated and angry with hostilities and name-calling aimed towards me, simply because I had expressed how I felt. Instead of attempting to understand where I was coming from, or try and look at the situation from my shoes, my ex-partner wrote me off as an irrational bitch.

I really respected the Dixie Chicks' refusal to apologize for what they said or for feeling how they felt. Sure it seems corny to relate their experience with petty fights with my ex-boyfriend, but that's how the film and the music of the Dixie Chicks left their imprint on my life and identity.

Week 4: Wonderful World, Beautiful People

Despite the heavily romanticised, almost mourning-like nostalgia which surrounds much of the contemporary attitudes towards the counter-cultural 1960s, Whiteley argues how the time was still a stagnant time for feminism, especially in terms of popular music. Female musicians, despite many challenging and illustrious figures such as Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and our very own Buffy St. Marie, still remained below their male counterparts (23). While the musical scene continued to be dominated by men, the songs and music that represented the sixties—rock and progressive rock in particular—also sang of women in limited roles, closely tied to the constraining Madonna/whore dichotomy.

Women were positioned within the music, as well as in the counter-cultural lifestyle, as “romanticised fantasy figures, subservient earth mothers or easy lays” (23). Male musicians who sang about love, such as the Beatles and Donavan, would position women as committed lovers and earth mothers, while cock rock performers such as the Rolling Tones or Jimi Hendrix would sing about sexually promiscuous women with many partners (25). While female musicians such as UK singer Dusty Springfield made great strides within the 1960s, with Springfield becoming “the first white soul singer to perform in Harlem” (24), Whiteley points out the pressures of female musicians to conform to limited forms of femininity. Springfield eventually left Britain, due to negative attitudes towards her bisexuality (24). Even sexual promiscuity, though liberating for women, was limiting in its reliance on a “romanticized construct of the young, single woman” (29). Whiteley ultimately questions the 1960s as a progressive moment for women and women in popular music: Was the women’s movement really able to “find a place even within a progressive counter culture” (29)?

***

I have often wished to go back to a time like the 60s, when radical events such as student uprisings against the post-secondary school system were taking place. Since reading Whiteley though, who takes a feminist approach to the music of the 1960s, I've begun to reconsider. I'm beginning to realize just how much of the music I've grown up around has been made by and for men. This probably has a lot to do with how I've grown up listening to my father's records from the 1960s and 70s.

It was interesting to learn that it was during the 1960s and 70s, Japan was opened up for touring American musicians, and American rock music in general. My father was born in the 70s, and spent much of his young adult life after high school collecting records of musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band and The Grateful Dead. He initially wanted to move to America, disillusioned with the strict confines of Japanese society. He did the next best thing, which was to move his small, budding family, to Canada in 1987. I was barely a year old.

My father's large record collection and his massive and still growing CD collection, have influenced my identity greatly. Taking long car rides with my father was where I'd have the most exposure to his music. Although I enjoyed some of the songs, I could never really connect to my father's music. I still feel the music is part of his realm, and maybe even part of a male world I feel an outsider to.

I complained to him about the lack of female musicians within his piles of CD's recently, and he pulled out Diana Krall CD for me to listen to. I haven't had a chance to hear the music yet, but I wonder if I will feel more aligned with the female jazz musician. I hope to dig out more female musicians from my dad's collection, and continue exploring the realm of women in music.

Week 5: Joni Mitchell

Canadian folk singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell was one of the early successful female solo artists within Western popular music. She is a powerful figure within women in popular music, precisely because “she exemplifies the singer songwriter who got there on her own efforts, and whose albums demonstrate an increasing level of artistic and technical control” (79). Not only was she a recognized and well-respected musician within the folk scene, her second album Clouds (1967) helped her achieve a grammy, signifying commercial success and critical acclaim as well. Her music is very personal, touching on aspects on her life such as her first marriage, the child she gave up for adoption and her struggle as a female musician within a male-dominated music industry. She sings of travelling and being true to herself, and realizing the limitations and unhappiness that men have brought to her life.

Her 1967 album Blue, explores these issues, with special emphasis on her personal struggle with living her life and her musical career on her own terms. The first track of the album, ‘All I Want,’ is indicative of this struggle. Within her very personal lyrics, she comes to the realization that her dependence on men and relationships come at the cost of herself—her dreams, ambitions, life and even happiness. The album describes the “conflict between love and pain, belong and freedom, the resultant emptiness that can accompany the ‘lonely road’” (90). Her intimate portrayal of her struggle through music is what makes her such a powerful female musician. “Her strength lies in her pragmatism” (90) argues Whiteley, noting Mitchell’s realistic, genuine and unromantic view of her life as both a woman and a female musician. Her honest exploration of her personal life through music is essentially what makes her an important female musician.

***

I was always a sucker for the romanticized, idyllic love songs that are so pervasive in popular music. Although the days when I spent hours listening to cheesy love songs are largely over, the raspy voice of Sam Bean from the indie band Iron and Wine continues to pull me into a romantic daydreams. Romantic notions of heterosexual love continue to be major themes within popular music; this practice does not seem to have died out since the heydey of The Beatles and Donavan.

It is interesting then to look at Joni Mitchell and her realistic, pragmatic viewpoint of love, relationships and life as what makes her such a prominent figure within music. Her haunting voice and the lonely sounds of her acoustic guitar help to bring a more down-to-earth tone to her music. Would more realistic versions of life for women within the lyrics of female musicians help to challenge traditional ideas surrounding women and femininity?

As compelling and challenging a musician Joni Mitchell is, I wonder if the image of a "realistic" woman also has it's constraints? Mitchell's reality, portrayed through her songs and lyrics, are just that: one woman's experience of 'reality.' Can we really expect one woman's notion of what "real" women deal with to encompass the experience of all women? Although I feel it is important to challenge overly romanticized versions of femininity and the lives of women, I also feel it is important to recognize the separate realities all women live.

Week 6: Daughters of Chaos

Within her analysis of two of the most prominent women within punk music—Patti Smith and Siouxsie Sioux—Whiteley employs the influential ideas of Bulgarian-French feminist thinker Julia Kristeva. In the genre where “emphasis [lies] on the delivery of the vocal, the shock tactics of the lyrics and an overall emphasis on an eccentricity of self-expression” (98), as opposed to musical talent and technicality, the importance of language in constructing identity is made most prevalent. Drawing on Lacanian theory, one of Kristeva’s key ideas revolves around “her distinction between the semiotic and symbolic order” (96). The symbolic order, the internalization of the dominant order, is limited for women, where the dominant order is essentially phallocentric patriarchy. The semiotic is described as the pre-symbolic, pre-Oedipal realm which is repressed for the internalization of the symbolic order. Kristeva argues the revolutionary implications of semiotic expression, which challenges and subverts the dominant order through its representation of the irrational, disorder and the abject.

Patti Smith, one of the founding punk artists regardless of her gender, and her music, heavily inspired by poetry and the avant-garde, encompass Kristeva’s ideas of the tensions between the symbolic order and the semiotic within language. Whiteley analyzes Patti Smith’s Gloria, the first track of her debut album Horses (1975), interpreting the use of a gospel choir as back-up vocals as representing religion and order, while Smith chaotic vocals, with added meaning due to the song’s male point of view, symbolize disorder and mayhem.

Both Patti Smith and Siouxsie Sioux, the leader of one of the more successful British punk bands during the early years of punk, are known for their use of androgyny in regards to their physical appearances. Whiteley notes the androgynous look Patti Smith takes on for the cover of her album Horses where “Smith comes across as both self-assured and sexually-ambiguous, challenging and contesting the boundaries of gender” (100). Siouxsie Sioux on the other hand was known not only for the archetypical anarchy and swastika shirts of early punk musicians, but challenging heteronormative sexuality through taking performative and stylistic influence from the Bromley gay scene, as well as notorious fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Whiteley also notes how Sioux’s “coolly androgynous” was influenced by none other than Patti Smith. Both of these women, taking on the do-it-yourself musical style in which women were able to compete on even ground with male musicians, and presenting themselves in ways which challenged traditional notions of femininity and female sexuality, are highly influential figures within the history of Western pop music.

***

I find punk music to be very compelling, especially because of its initial role as subverting traditional norms. Today, however, punk seems to have lost its radical stance, particularly because of the commercialization of the punk image. It is unfortunate that not many contemporary female pop artists utilize punk, with its importance grounded largely in language, as a viable musical outlet.

It is interesting how punk music was so accessible and revolutionary for women because of its lack of emphasis on musical talent. I feel music is still very much based on skill and technical elements, as opposed to simply being an enjoyable form of human communication. One of my original career goals was to be a high school music teacher, inspired by the enjoyment I felt during my years as a young bass clarinet player. These aspirations ended when I realized the competitive nature of post-secondary musical education, as well as the major emphasis on technical musical skills.

My bass clarinet currently lies below my bed, collecting dust since my experiences of playing in high school and community concert bands have slowly diminished. I miss the happiness I felt playing alongside other musicians, working together to create fun and interesting sounds. I feel the emphasis on music as a realm reserved for professional musicians is limiting, and I'm glad Patti Smith and Siouxsie Sioux felt the same.

Week 7: Strange Fruit

“Everybody’s Protest Song: Music as Social Protest in the Performances of Marian Anderson and Billie Holiday”

In this article, Janell Hobson analyzes two important events in American music history, as well as the history of black female musicians and music performers. In 1939, despite major differences—from the style of their music to their intentions behind these musical events—both Marian Anderson, a contralto classical vocalist, and Billie Holiday, an infamous jazz singer, perform acts of social protest through song. Anderson was asked to perform an Easter Sunday concert at Lincoln Memorial “after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow her performance at Constitution Hall” (Hobson), and Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” at Commodore Records when her record company, Columbia Records, would not allow her to. Hobson asks whether these singers actually signify social protest through these songs and these performances, or if these events continue to reinforce “black women’s voicelessness in cultural discourses on American music heritage and, ironically, in political narratives.”

Black women’s singing, Hobson argues, is not only a site of struggle between “objectification and agency,” but a site of resistance. Although there is a danger of rendering black women’s protest songs as purely sentimental with no political message, the ironic edge of both Anderson and Holiday’s performances not only signify a political stance against racism but “what Holiday has called “personal protest” against the interlocking effects of racism and sexism” (Hobson). Anderson’s rendition of patriotic “America” is given a different perspective when sung in the context of racial protest. Holiday brought her own personal protest to Lewis Allen’s poem, by connecting the lynching scene depicted within the poem to her own experience of her father dying in a segregated hospital. Hobson ultimately argues both these women “placed black women’s singing in the political arena,” and opened up opportunity for other black women’s voices to be heard.

***

Learning about the acts of protest both Marian Anderson and Billie Holiday performed as black women at a time when racism was so prevalent within Western society was very inspirational. So inspirational, that it inspired a group of students, including myself, to mark the nearing of Anti-Racism day (Mar 21) with a sidewalk art demonstration on campus. 'Strange Fruit' was the major inspiration for us to 'hang' images of racism and of adversity against racism on the trees around the campus courtyard. Unfortunately the demonstration was met with criticism by an angry student who wrote an article to The Phoenix, UBCO's student newspaper. One of his grand claims was how "racism has largely been eliminated from North American society." He felt our demonstration was "opening up a healed wound" and was "disparagement for disparagement's sake."

It is always upsetting and disappointing to hear the denial and refusal to accept how racism continues to exist within Western society. It is precisely within popular culture where I see the continued perpetuation of negative stereotypes based on race. One of the images I hung on the trees was an image of pop singer Gwen Stefani, surrounding by her infamous 'Harajuku Girls.' While No Doubt, the band in which Stefani fronted during the 90s, was one of the first bands I fell in love with, Stefani has increasingly moved from a powerful female musician, who angrily protested the constrictions of femininity through songs such as 'I'm just a Girl,' to a popstar who has completely appropriated Japanese subcultures to sell records. I find her representation of these silent, exoticized Japanese back-up dancers to be racist, perpetuating negative stereotypes of Japanese women.

Gwen in her "I'm just a Girl" days...

Like how Holiday vividly portrayed racism through 'Strange Fruit,' I hope musicians such as Tracy Chapman, continue to portray the realities of racism, rather than continuing to perpetuate minorities through negative representations.

...Gwen today, appropriating Japanese culture