Concluding Statement
“I know it’s a sexist thing to say, but women aren;t as good as making music as men- like they’re not as good as men at football. A girl in a dress with a guitar looks weird. Like a dog riding a bicycle. Very odd. Hard to get past it.”- Julie Burchill.
The aim of our blog, I believe, was to critically assess music journalism with reference to women in rock music. We divided up the time we had for this assessment into categories (character profiles, decades of rock, sexualisation & discrimination and our conclusions). I found that information regarding the sexualisation and discrimination of women in rock was easily accessible as I viewed documentaries, online journals, online videos & web pages as well as various books which ultimately shaped my blog entries. I based most of my blogs on key ideas which were derived from the articles and resources I found, although I also tried to incorporate my own personal views into each blog.
Conclusively, women, across history, have been subjected to gender discrimination. This can be a result of socialisation, as people are still yet to understand that femininity need not to be directly associated with women, and that masculinity does not necessarily need to be affiliated with a biological man. Music journalism plays a major role in the discrimination that female rock musicians receive through ignoring their success, and only focussing on their private lives, which can even deem a female musician as infamous (Courtney Love experiences this discrimination as her private life has been constantly slandered by the press; drug addiction and child welfare issues.)The book “Gender in the Music Industry” quotes that the media’s portrayal of various female rock musicians focusses on discreditting a woman in a male dominated culture; Love is described as a person “who fights an inner war with herself” and Bjork is characterised as being “mentally unstable”. Is the media trying to say that these characteristics constitute what it means to be a female rock musician?
Additionally, from the research I attained through conversations within my group and workshop debates, it is apparent that the idea of “women in rock music” is a problematic concept in itself. Already, from this statement, women are segregated from rock music through the arguments surrounding the gender binaries that reflect upon contemporary society. Why not just discuss “rock music”? Why “women in rock music” This is because rock ‘n roll is seen as a male domineering culture and that women who are rock ‘n roll artists are either unsatisfactory musicians or simply masculine. What about femininity!?
Performance also plays a key role in distinuishing female musicians as rock artists. “Punk performer Siouxsie Sioux of the well known British band Siouxsie and the Banshees offered a visual challenge to the conventions of female stage performance during the late 1970’ by adopting a a confrontational, overtly sexual stage persona-she dressed in militaristic style, thigh high boots, black satin shorts and a Tshirt with a an image of a piar of breasts. Her face make-up was heavily applied, creating a mask rather than acting as conventional enhancement. The image she presented, along with other female punk performers of the time, was intended to challenge conventional female “prettiness.”
Across time, women within the rock ‘n roll culture, have been misrepresented within the media and constantly compared to males. This is a result of the gender arguments that exist between what defines a feminine person and what defines a masculine person. Performance, attire and personality are the key attributes a woman can use in getting herself recgonised within the rock’n roll culture. This assignment honestly makes me want to pick up a guitar in an effort to prove that masculinity is not a social tool for determining a person’s succession in the world of the music and media.
-Ellie
Thankyou and Goodnight
I’m really glad we chose women’s contribution to rock music for a topic. Not only was it something we could all engage with, but it’s really changed the way that I look at women in rock music as well as the media representation of those women (it’s definitely brought out my inner feminist, too). What was incredible was reading other blogs and articles. It really surprised me that women are the ones who are perpetuating the poor representations of female musicians (the ‘no good girl guitarists’ blog) and also female fans (cited in Misrepresentation part 2). I never realised it was that much harder for female performers. In fact, I guess I never really thought about it until now.
‘Perhaps the most common way in which music journalists treat female performers is to ignore them completely. This attitude is particularly noticeable in retrospective writing on rock history, which often obliterates any trace of all but a few token women’ (Davies 2001:302).
Our goal was to critically assess women’s contribution to rock music and how they are represented in the media. I think we’ve done that. We’ve all brought interesting discussion of female rock musicians to the blog. And maybe we’ve even helped to change some opinions on the way?
I found the profiles on female musicians to be the most interesting part of this assignment. It was a great way to address all the things we wanted to discuss, including sexualisation and media representation. It was also a great way to explore the different types of female musicians in rock music. The profiles also enabled us to write about people we are familiar with, it was really great to combine an interest with Uni work. All the women we profiled were iconic because they entered a field that was biased against them and still managed to do great things. They are very inspirational.
As said above, I never realised how bleak the situation was for female rock musicians until researching for the blog. However, I think there is hope for the future. The Internet provides an alternative to the rock music press that has represented female artists and fans for so long: people are less reliant on them as mediators to find new music.And maybe even blogs like this one will help female rock artists to be recognised.
Alex
The Girls of Rock and Roll 