Women have to carve out their space on merit

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a radio programme, which wanted me to go on the air and discuss a few of the albums coming out that week. I couldn’t do it, but was secretly flattered that, of all the journalists they could have rung, they somehow found their way to me. Writing can be such a solitary, message-in-a-bottle sort of thing and it’s great to get confirmation that not only does the stuff you write actually get read by real live humans somewhere, but occasionally maybe you do something that pings on someone’s sonar, that maybe means something to them. So I thanked the researcher and said to please ring me again. “Oh, definitely,” he said. “We seriously cannot find female contributors.”
Ha! Take that, ego. It’s funny when you go through life conducting yourself as if you live in a pure meritocracy, and then get shown up for the laughably naive innocent that you are.
On the one hand, it’s probably a good thing when people in the media are aware that music journalism, and music in general, is still very much a boy’s game (note: not even quite a man’s game, but a boy’s) and thus are on the lookout for practical ways to make it less of a lopsided endeavour, to help it reflect that the world, if not the music world, is a much more 50-50 sort of place, at the very least in terms of population. On the other hand, nobody who works hard to be good at something is interested in being buoyed up by affirmative action and not their own talent.
For that reason, a huge part of me really hates the idea of a ‘women’s issue’, to the point where I almost didn’t write this piece. I’ve discussed more than once with music-playing friends of mine the whole question of whether any of us would feel comfortable playing an all-female festival or theme night. Almost nobody I know would. Similarly, a few people I know who have played Dublin’s annual Ladyfest feel profoundly divided over it, torn between a sense of lighthearted fun and an even bigger sense that the whole thing is cringeworthy and that they’re somehow selling themselves short by climbing out of the Musician box and into the Girl Musician one.
Nobody, bar no-one, I know who is doing anything worth doing wants to be regarded as a ‘woman artist’ (I hate that whole prissily PC double-noun thing; why not just say ‘female artist’?) – they just want to be artists. That’s not to say that their sexuality might not have absolutely everything to do with whatever it is that they do. They just do not wish to belong to anything other than the master category, to perform and be judged on anything smaller than the world stage. If men get to do that, and they do, then surely feminism means women getting to do that as well, and fuck the subcategories.
A few years ago I reviewed an all-female compilation, about which I was very deeply in two minds: I loved several of the artists who’d been chosen, but felt, firstly, that everything from the track selection to the album art was stereotypically female rather than truthfully so, and secondly that the whole idea of grouping women (‘cos it’s never men, just women) by their sex was reductive and patronising. Please forgive me for quoting myself, but what I said at the time was, “Surely what all those amazing minds and iron wills – from Mary Wollstonecraft forward – fought for, was the abolition of that weirdly digital 1-or-0 phallusocracy and all the outdated symbolism that went with it”.
On the other hand, there are certain decidedly digital home truths still on the go in 2005 that it would be idiotic to pretend you can’t see.
Quite literally home truths, actually. In the absence of rock-star types to interview for this article, I made some other phone calls.
My sister: “I don’t know how I’d feel about a women’s issue. But realistically, men do still dominate practically everything.”
A friend who’s a professional musician: “I hate the idea of a women’s issue, it’s completely patronising. But on the other hand, the fact is there’s still almost no women in music, compared to the number of men. So to pretend that everything is 100% the same when for some reason women either can’t succeed in music or aren’t trying to... I dunno.”
My mother: “Why not a women’s issue? Why pretend that we’re the same? We aren’t. And that’s good.”
Actually, I wasn’t pretending that. But it’s a good point. The opposite sex, whichever you are, is a foreign country: they do things differently there. And indeed, that is good; it’s one of the great pleasures of life.
And indeed as well, in the same way that wearing makeup, being interested in style, knowing how to cook and wanting kids someday doesn’t make you an unreconstructed Stepford wife selling out the sisterhood, a magazine issue that looks at certain artists through the particular lens of sex, I reflected, maybe has the potential to be a lot of fun, in the way that other special one-off publications celebrate the music scenes of, say, Seattle, New York or Detroit. The interviewees might have nothing in common but that one factor; in fact that’s usually the case with special issues. So what? Well…
The thing is, with the pre-feminism age still only about one generation ago, it’s no wonder some of us are still not interested in being bracketed in that way. Until the day that a ‘male issue’ of something comes out – and as interested in reading that as I’d be, I don’t advise any breath-holding for it (who would it even feature? Textbook males like Springsteen or Henry Rollins? Or 2005’s leading men, Antony Hegarty and Rufus Wainwright? Or, well, merely 90% of rock bands on earth?) – I can’t be comfortable with it. As well, unlike (for the sake of argument) a Detroit issue, more than half the world is female. We’re not a trendy place or special interest group, to be briefly focused on before going back to normal. We’re the majority.     
But here’s the thing. My own heroes (writers, actors, musicians) when I was growing up were all men, a fact I didn’t even notice until I went to university. I play a number of instruments and the people who inspired me to take up the stringed ones were men (John Cale, Warren Ellis, Dickon Hinchcliffe, Colm Mac Con Iomaire), with one exception, the late Jacqueline du Pre. It was significant to come across her work first and foremost because she was simply a phenomenal musician. But it was also significant because I realised that having role models who are the same sex is important – not better, but important – for reasons I’m only beginning to understand. I suppose it’s partially that, in the same way that a kid growing up needs positive role models, so do people trying to be creative; and the more you can see your possible future self in them – the closer your heroes are to what you are – the better. Sometimes this means ‘closer’ socially, economically, or ethnically; in the medium or genre you work within; in interests or in sensibility; or through shared personal experience – and other times, it simply means, as a cool woman, that it’s great, for totally apolitical, non-complicated, fun reasons, to find out about other cool women. I’m proud to align myself with other string players in rock; but it’s also nice to feel myself at the more recent end of a thread in the history of music that also involves Sarah Vaughan, June Carter Cash, Debbie Harry and The Slits.
As well, and not least, rock music is basically steeped in sex and sexuality, in terms of everything from style and artwork to the way you conduct yourself generally, to the music-writing and performance itself. I’ve also realised, latterly, that it’s fun to have male role models for a different, but related, reason: it’s somehow stranger, more interesting to me in some ways, to siphon what particular men have done through my own sensibility. I’m sure that’s the case for a lot of people. Surely that’s an equal, if opposite, acknowledgement of the difference sex can make.
That said, I still do not divide things along gender lines. I like my heroes bigger than that. And anyone who is genuine in their interest in seeking to learn from the wisdom of others – wisdom about simply living well, as well as about being a creative person – must feel the same way.
You can learn not to mind what other people are doing and just go on your own adventure from Sinéad O’Connor, who used the making of Throw Down Your Arms, essentially a reggae songs-of-praise album, to take back ownership of her spirituality and heal her maimed idea of God. You can learn the value of honouring your passions from Roisin Murphy, whose lifelong love of disco and Northern soul has helped her to write several eccentric, very emotionally truthful albums of voluptuous, stunningly arranged and produced dance music – and has also made her one of the best frontpeople in the world, chiefly, I think, because she’s doing what comes naturally, what she can’t not do. She’s responding physically to music that has sustained her all her life.
You can acquire the desire to create whole universes that never existed before from Polly Harvey, who has evolved an incredibly original aesthetic, always has one ear cocked for the unusual, constantly pushes herself not to repeat anything she’s done before and yet always sounds like herself. You can also learn from Polly, who smiles onstage and writes some of the most erotic, positive, powerful love songs ever penned, never to be too cool to be full of joy. I also wish more of the world would learn from her that celebrating female strength and sexuality does not mean Photoshopping men out of the picture. Quite the opposite.
You can learn from Karen O (of The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs) the value of being as true to yourself as possible – not to throw someone else’s shapes, but to go on a combination of creativity and instinct and (both literally and figuratively) to embrace chaos and messiness, if that’s what feels right. You can also learn a lot from her about what a lie the female ideal of beauty is. How, with beauty, as with most other things in life, you can do whatever the hell you want, and you create your own good fortune.
You can learn the value of not being afraid to make things personal from Regine Chassagne, whose band Arcade Fire have made the album of 2005 by bringing their own disparate histories and recent pasts to bear on some of the most ambitious, celebratory, emotionally explicit music I’ve heard in ages; with death and family and marriage wall-to-wall, some of it is so searingly personal (or, at least, personal-sounding) that I still, months later, get chills when I hear it. You can see clearly from Peaches, the ultimate solo artist, who performs with only a beatbox, a couple of electric guitars and her own big mouth, how much can be accomplished with nothing but immense physical energy, guts and sheer will.
On the other hand, you can learn from Meg White, VV out of the Kills and Sharin Foo out of the Raveonettes how much can happen if you have the confidence to lean on creative soulmates.
The only things these people have in common are, one, their gender and, two, the fact that they knock most other people currently making music into next week. Surely, even if you’re female, the second of those two is more important.
Peaches pic: Cathal Dawson