Grunge, Riot Grrrl and the
Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture
Mona J. Barnes
Humanities 240 –H1WW-W15
Instructor Jenifer Garey
April 25, 20
Grunge, Riot Grrrl and the
Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture
My Analyzation
Since the dawn of what is termed
“grunge” music in the 1990’s along with the emergence and success of the group Nirvana, women
who contributed to this scene have been pushed aside. Grunge is a type of dark fusion of punk and
metal music. It came out of Seattle on
the Sub Pop label in the late 1980’s and into the 90’s. There were several
female bands that contributed to this movement.
Musicians in the grunge scene, of which many were males, had expressed
an antisexist viewpoint in their music and in the grunge scene as a whole. Riot Grrrl is a feminist punk movement that
also came from the West coast in the 1990’s.
Female bands under this genre for example were Hole, Babes in Toyland, Courtney Love Band, and Dickless, to name a
few of the more well known. These bands
were actually grunge music but the writer believes that these female bands and
performers were put under the more "punk rock" label of Riot Grrrls so that the
grunge field could be attributed to a male music genre.
This journal paper came about from
interviews with fans of grunge from Australia.
The response ratio for the interviews was 2/3 to 1/3 male to
female. They were randomly chosen by
responding to fliers, underground newspapers, and music websites. The interviewers asked questions about what
the interviewees remembered about that time, and what the impact of grunge music
was for them. Even though there were a
significant number of females who took on important roles in this movement, no
one really remembers them like their male counterparts. On the ten year anniversary of Kurt Cobain's
death, it seemed that even the media, when discussing this era in music, forgot
about or minimized the contributions that the female bands and performers made
to this genre of music.
When discussing rock and roll, men also
dominate, even though there have been great female contributors. This seems
more widely accepted since rock music has always been considered a “male” genre
of sex, drugs, and, well…you know the rest.
In grunge music, the whole message
was about gender equality and disappointment life for the average angsty teenager at the the time, with Courtney Love being one of the most well-known
grunge female performers. She was condemned for her rejection of how genders
were perceived and stereotyped; even though the whole movement was about that and
other things I mentioned earlier. When
the men were doing it, it was awesome. After the grunge scene waned and without
the likes of Eddie Vedder and Kurt
Cobain, at least in a major market sense, the women of grunge music were
chastised or shunned for this very genderless message.
According to the journal report (Strong, 2011. pg. 399) these women have been either forgotten or relabeled as “Riot Girrrls”. This relabeling allows the threat posed to
patriarchal relations to be compartmentalized and contained, while the “grunge”
label is reinscribed as a form of “masculine” rock”.
Why is this done to women and what
causes their invisibility? Throughout
history, women’s contributions have either been rarely mentioned or left off of
the records altogether. This happens in
all societies, regardless of geographic location. Many say it may be because women were not the
ones “keeping the record” of such events.
Others think that women didn’t protect their contributions like
historians did for men. Even in more
modern times where there is documentation of such events of women, they are
forgotten about just because they were female.
Most music done by women is labeled pop music, because surely females
cannot be taken as serious contributors to real music. If they ARE in serious bands, it is normal
for society to view them as “eye-candy” and not real musicians.
When it comes to the music media,
most of the press is run by men; excluding women or women’s contributions and
expressing information from and to a male perspective.
One of the reasons this lack of credibility is brought about is the fact
that not as many women write their own music and lyrics. They are not considered
“real” musicians and are not controlling their own music and destiny.
Therefore, they don’t really count and are often diminished until forgotten or
just plain ignored altogether. Males
identified grunge as a masculine movement that depicted the rage that young
boys and men were trying to express with how things were. Most girls at the
time, in society, were not into grunge music like men were so that added to the
masculine media love. According to the
journal report (2011, Strong, 411-412) one respondent’s answer about listening
to any women of grunge, he responded, “Hole, Courtney Love is just a dirty rock
slut” (laughs).
Every time a woman or several women
contribute in a big way to music or anything else, it is like it is a new thing
for women. No one adds to the history of
these events all along that women took part in, no one adds to the history,
because the history was forgotten.
I agree that most of what Ms. Strong
is saying is absolutely true. However,
in the past, and I mean long ago past, women were not allowed to have
controlling interest or even opinions about what was going on in society. It used to be that most of the well-educated
were only men and it was “their department” to take care of such things. Once women came into their own, they were
then, I believe, contributors from behind the scenes. Their discussions behind closed doors with
their families afforded them more of an opportunity to offer or express an
opinion. If the man thought it a good
idea, it was expressed as his own in most cases.
Society as a whole has socialized
women for years of what their role is and what the male’s role is and only
within the last few generations have we, as a society, started to truly
recognize and acknowledge in a public format, what women are doing and
contributing to their communities and on the world stage. I also think that no matter what women do in
any capacity or any field, they will always be diminished in the eyes of the
world. Is it due to how we socialize
boys as well as the girls? Girls need to be empowered and boys need to know
that even though they aren’t allowed to fight with girls because they may be
stronger; girls can be on equal footing.
There is a very long way to go. Our society is not ready, even though our
girls are.
References
Strong,
Catherine (2011, April. Grunge, Riot Grrrl and the Forgetting of Women in
Popular
Culture, Journal of Popular Culture,
Volume 44 (2) 398-416.
