7 thoughts on “Reader query: feminism and musical subcultures”

  1. I can suggest a documentary called “From the back of the room”, about women in hardcore and punk subcultures. That might be a good starting point.

  2. There is literally a TON of literature on feminism/gender and musical subcultures. Feminist approaches to popular music really started as a scholarly endeavor in the early 80s with Angela McRobbie’s feminist critiques of “subcultural studies” (coming out of Dick Hebdige’s work on punk), and her studies of gender and fan cultures. There’s a whole subfield of feminist/gender studies approaches to (ethno)musicology and popular music studies.

    So, to better answer the query, I’d like to know more specifically about what exactly the reader is looking for–a specific genre? In a specific country/region/historical moment? Are we looking at women’s involvement in the genre as artists? Or are we looking at gender in fan cultures? Or the role of gender in specific musical genres’ aesthetics? Or do we mean “subcultures” in the specific Hebdige-ian sense of the term? What about hip hop feminism? That’s a whole “movement” or “wave” of feminism based in a specific musical subculture (or, what was formerly a subculture, and now exists in both mainstream and subcultural iterations).

    If what you want is a sort of general intro to/overview of the field, here are some suggestions:

    “What’s that Smell?” in Judith Halberstam’s _In A Queer Time And Place_. This is a great place to start, and, b/c it was published in 2005 (ish), it has a good bibliography for mining the 80s/90s/early 00s literature on gender/feminism/queer studies and pop music.

    The following journals: Women & Music, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, The Journal of Popular Music

    The work of the following scholars: Shelia Whiteley, Gayle Wald, Susan McClary, Suzanne Cusick, Susan Cook, Fred Evans, Joan Morgan, Gwendolyn Pough, Tricia Rose, Judith Peraino, Phillip Brett, Elizabeth Wood

    Of course, I’m really happy to talk directly with the reader: my email is rjames7ATunccDOTedu

  3. Thanks for the quick responses!

    Sorry I haven’t replied sooner. I should probably start by pointing out that I don’t have a background in philosophy, although I do have an interest. I am actually a music technology student so my knowledge is of the musical side of things generally, it’s only this year I’ve started to broaden my horizons a bit.

    I’ve not had a chance to go through all the recommendations yet but I have got a few books out of the library on the back of them, so thanks again!

    The work I’m doing is a case study on representations of gender roles in Kerrang magazine (a ‘rock’ weekly in the uk – http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands/Kerrang/ ). So specifically, the kind of literature I’m looking for would be, generally speaking, about current, or at least recent, punk, pop punk, hardcore, metal, emo and the more alternative side of ‘indie’ (for example folk-punk) scenes.

    I think it would be mainly UK and US scenes that would be of interest as that is what Kerrang almost exclusively covers.

    Robin, you mention feminist/gender studies approaches to (ethno)musicology and popular music studies and I’d definitely be interested to know more about that…

    Also, if anyone knows any studies into industrial music culture I would love to see them. This is more of a personal interest rather than something I need for academic work. I’m doing a research project on why people listen to a particularly extreme few albums by the band Swans and I came across a PHD thesis on Industrial music culture (http://www.tagg.org/others/KCthesis.zip).

    For the same project I was also researching metal culture and from what I’ve read, it seems that the fans of both kinds of music have very similar backgrounds and find their scene attractive for very similar reasons. However the biggest difference I noticed was in the way women were treated. Metal is notoriously sexist and off the top of my head I can think of tonnes of videos with women being dominated/subservient to men while the men get more and more cartoonishly ‘masculine’ (see Manowar and Turisas). All the literature confirmed this. Industrial culture on the other hand, is depicted in Collins’ thesis as having a ‘strong feminist current’ and unconventional gender roles despite similar low levels of female participation. I was just curious to find out more, really and see if other research confirmed what Collins found. If it does it definitely opens up a good opportunity for some very interesting research into why metal and industrial are so different in this respect despite the similar backgrounds of the people involved in the culture!

  4. Hi Hali,

    For your Kerrang study, two texts come to mind. They ‘re both edited collections, and they’re both somewhat old, but they’ll lay out the “background” the more recent work will assume. They are:

    Frith, Simon. “On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word”
    Whiteley, Shelia. “Sexing the Groove”

    In the 90s there was A LOT of really great stuff written about riot grrrl, which would likely be informative in analyzing contemporary punk/emo/hardcore-type scenes. The Halberstam chapter will cover a lot of that literature. Gayle Wald’s work on this is great, IMHO.

    For more general introductions to feminist ethnomusicology/musicology/popular music studies, definitely check out the “Women & Music” journal–it publishes many of the leading people in this area. You can also just start with the first book in feminist musicology, McClary’s “Feminine Endings.” Ashegate also has a really great book series on gender and musicology/popular music studies.

    Re: Industrial v. metal: So, as someone who was just listening to Nitzer Ebb in the gym this morning, I can definitely say that the gender politics of industrial are much more obviously nuanced and complicated than those in metal–to an extent, right, b/c there was this moment, in like 1998, when goth-industrial bands started sounding like KORN, and the goth-industrial and metal scenes sort of merged for a while…

    But I digress: Collins’ thesis strikes me as correct–but I’m not particularly familiar with metal, just industrial. If you want to look more into industrial, here are some suggestions:

    — Learn about Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Gen was one of the pioneers of industrial music (w/Throbbing Gristle), and also strongly incorporates feminist/queer/trans themes in her work.

    — Look in the goth literature (not 19th c novels, but scholarly studies of goth subcultures). Goth and industrial have always been overlapping subcultures. There’s a ton of good stuff on goth, gender, and sexuality. A good place to start (and biblo-mine) is the collection “Goth: Undead Subculture”. Goth and metal have also had their intersections.

    — Historically, metal is actually about a decade older than industrial. Sabbath, for example, while coming out of Birmingham, is a generation older than, say, Cabaret Voltaire (from Sheffield) or Throbbing Gristle (from Manchester). Depeche Mode got sorta industrial-y for a while in the early 80s. So it seems to me that metal and industrial come from very different places, very different contexts, etc. While metal kids and industrial kids (or, old metalheads and old rivetheads, as is increasingly the case with me) sometimes hang out together, I think it’s wrong to conflate the two and/or their audiences. Just an example: Industrial slides easily into EBM, but metalheads _don’t_ dance. I’m happy to talk more about this off-list!

    — talk to me off-list. I’m in the beginning stages of crafting a paper on industrial music and gender, actually! So, I have a lot of not-yet-entirely-choate thoughts on this…

  5. Dunja Brill did some qualitative research on gender and the goth scene, e.g.
    Subversion or Stereotype? The Gothic Subculture as a Case Study of Gendered Identities and Representations (2006)

    She’s currently working on “Masculinity, Power/Violence and Whiteness” within the metal scene.

    Just check out her website http://www.dunjabrill.com/ for futher information.

  6. I interviewed Bif Naked back in 1995, and she summed it up quite succinctly.

    Me: Being a woman in rock ‘n’ roll.
    Bif: IT SUCKS!

    :) :)

    Interesting bibliography here, if you can track down the relevant articles

    http://post.queensu.ca/~grime/bibliography.html

    A few that look in line with what you’re asking, from the page…

    Walser, R. (1993). Running with the Devil: Power, gender and madness in heavy metal music. London: Wesleyan University Press.

    Schwictenberg, C. (Ed.). (1993). The Madonna connection: Representational politics, subcultural identities, and cultural theory. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

    Steward, S., & Garratt, S. (1984). Signed, sealed, delivered: True life stories of women in pop. Boston: South End Press.

    Stewart, A. (1989). Declarations of independence: The female rock and roller comes of age. In C. Lont & S. Friedly (Eds.), Beyond boundaries: Sex and gender diversity in communication (pp. 283-98). Fairfax: George Mason University Press.

    Stewart, A. D. (1995). You’re not rid of me: Riot grrrl bands and new roles and old roles in the work of female performers. In C. M. Lont (Ed.), Women and media: Content, careers, and criticism (pp. 360-71). Belmont: Wadsworth.

    Stremikis, B. A. (1998). Women in music: Their characteristics and career restrictions. Doctoral Dissertation, Saybrook Institute.

    Sullivan, C. (1996). The joy of hacking: Women rock critics. In S. Cooper (Ed.), Girls! girls! girls! Essays on women and music (pp. 138-145). New York: New York University Press.

    Renton, B. (1980). The status of women in college music 1976-1977. Bighamton, NY: College Music Society.

    Reynolds, S., & Press, J. (1995). The sex revolts: Gender, rebellion and rock’n’roll. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Roberts, R. Ladies first: Women in music videos. Jackson: U of Mississippi Press, 1996.

    Robertson, C. E. (1987). Power and gender in the musical experiences of women. In E. Koskoff (Ed.), Women and music in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 225-44). New York: Greenwood Press.

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