Mona J. Barnes - Journal Article Analysis  I don't know why it does not do the header and separate the pages.  Sorry

 

 

 

 

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.