no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Need! To! Read! both of those! (except it is bedtime now so I cannot possibly start on something I am sure will be stimulating in a hilarious way.)

I am secretly kind of a fan of the worst kinds of troll fics (though come to think of it, really, who isn't?) and that just sounds... so utterly trolly I can't resist.

horseshoe, I have not read that one. I swerve between loving Mantell and being scared shitless of/by her, but I recently read her autobiography and she is such an... odd person, you start to understand where the oddness of her stories come from. So I shall definitely add that one to the reading list!

mantel is gr8, cosign horseshoe

Mon dieu!

― emil.y, Thursday, June 12, 2014 2:13 PM (1 hour ago)

emil.y!!!!

This reminds me -- remember back in the day when were gonna get blingee jackets?

I knew someone in college who was obsessed with Robespierre so if she ended up writing fanfic I would not be surprised. #notalljacobins

I just have to say that Macklemore/Robespierre part 1 was a work of genius and great joy! I laughed; I cried; It was better than Cats.

But then the follow-up two were such a disappointment.

OMG the fucking irony! Remember how I was saying upthread that street harassment really just isn't ever a problem for me (and I was thinking about this, like recognising that it is a massive problem for other women, but wondering if it's weird that I never get it (though internet harassment/rape threats in DMs/comment boxes is a much more familiar pattern of problematic male behaviour for me))

LAST NIGHT I GOT STREET HARASSED!

Like, WTF, was it that football thing that emboldened them? It was just such a complete surprise, because it never happens. Like, I was just standing at the top of my street, talking to a friend, and you have to imagine 2 middle aged ladies, both in our 40s, and I was so surprised, like... "you're going to holler at *us*?" I think my actual reaction was just to start laughing because it was so completely out of the blue and absurd. It was deeply perplexing, more than anything else.

But I guess, now I feel like I can understand better or whatever, the conversation on street harassment.

I think the only thing anyone's ever yelled at me is "HALLOWEEN IS IN OCTOBER" and that was bcz, y'know, high school gothitude.

A recent report with not very good methodology despite being shared widely around the internet over the last couple of weeks found that per their sampling, 65% of women reported having been street harassed in their lives.

The problem with that number is that depending on where you live and who you are, some of those people are experiencing ZERO SH and some are experiencing it 5x a day. A survey that doesn't over-sample at-risk populations or figure out some way to make that number more representative is just a terrible way to try to prove anything. The data isn't meaningful.

i dunno. because humans have a wide range of harassment thresholds, it seems kinda impossible to get any "meaningful data" on this topic because it's so extremely subjective. why even try?

Because if you don't have data, and you say "Street harassment is a problem," some ding dong is going to be like, "I know ten women and none of them have every been harassed so I don't know why you want to focus your energy on something that doesn't exist."

Fun fact: the amount of street harassment I received roughly tripled when I was visibly pregnant. I also got aggressively hit on by two CTA bus drivers. Correlation is not causation and all but it was weird.

i know, and that's totally true. sorry about the bus drivers. geez. that's gross.

but i have to add that kinda think that the rush for DATA is a distraction -- i always want to respond by saying "don't make me 'prove' this. believe me when i tell you that it's happening because you know i am a reasonable person and support efforts to stop it" but i also have had to adapt to an increasingly data-driven workplace that is managed by people who don't know what to look at or ask for and have been ignoring things that are right under their noses because we "don't have data to support it". it feels like being under an inept tyrannical regime (lol/sob pinochet)

so to me it just seems like a delaying tactic rather than a genuine wish to "understand the problem"

like i said, i'm hostile about data! sorry :(

CA that's so weird! I wonder why that was so. Also, I have no idea why but I pretty much never ever get street harassed which is not to say that I don't know it's a very real problem but if does make it harder for me to relate to how much of a problem it is for some people.

it seems kinda impossible to get any "meaningful data" on this topic because it's so extremely subjective. why even try?

That's a really interesting question! The way a person receives harassment is obv personal and subjective, but there are things that are objectively objectifying and sexist, and the recipient of those things can't opt out on a bad day OR have any warning about what level of harassment is going to happen. Like, if you personally like being told you're pretty today by men you don't know on the street, that's fine for you, but it's still a form of the oppression of women in public places, it's just a softer form, maybe, depending on what your spectrum looks like. Also, when street harassment is normalized we all suffer because we don't get to choose whether a man says, "Good morning, beautiful" or "Call me, I'll come over and suck on those titties."

In a larger sense, the question of "Why try to collect this data at all?" is interesting because the answer is always "policy." Reports are created and released w much media fanfare in order to build up a store of data that could direct policy changes. SO THEN, take note of the fact that there currently IS no policy around street harassment, it's not a crime, it's a big nothing. Legally speaking, it does not exist. So then that report starts to look like a step toward creating legislation or directing the policy of non-profits and community organizations, and that's where the bad data actually does harm.

Blah blah, sorry, over-explaining as usual.

i know how the legislative system works, i just wish people would not have to be legislated into not being assholes

even though i know that it's necessary
i wish it were not so

PS: In the first para I am not meaning "you" as YOU, LL, but I know someone who started out actually thinking, if I don't get harassed today there must be something wrong with my outfit, and over a couple of years has begun to unlearn that reasoning and it's so exciting to hear her talk about how she kind of...woke up...to how harmful that was and how she was socialized to get her value from being harassed.

Actually there is not universal agreement on the idea that we need to have ANY LEGISLATION around SH--there are a lot of good arguments for how harmful that would be, and unequally harmful because law is applied unequally. I happen to think that the idea that identifying a problem REQUIRES offering a concrete solution at the same time is actually a dangerous distraction from a more ambitious and therefore much scarier project of actually changing people's minds/changing the culture around us, at least in discrete pockets where we can effectively work. And then using our work to make a model for other ppl changing THEIR cultural pockets into what works for THEM.

i know
i think i have political struggle fatigue tbh, partially bc of work and partially just because of my life

so to me it just seems like a delaying tactic rather than a genuine wish to "understand the problem"

ia, especially considering the reason we're lacking in DATA is because nobody gave a fuck for a long long time, and for the most part, still don't. "Oh you should be flattered."

I mean, yeah. You know that, even as we are discussing this here, there is some bloke (on ILX or elsewhere) just getting up the bee in his bonnet to shout "YOU'RE MAKING A BIG DEAL OUT OF NOTHING" or "BUT THAT'S HAPPENED TO ME, TOO (once, when I was 16)" or "BUT IT'S A COOOOOMPLIMENT!!!!!" and how we shouldn't even be talking about it at all. *gets whiplash from rolling eyes so hard*

But at the same time, during the #YesAllWomen tag, a friend of mine on twitter started saying that she was seeing so much talk about SH, and started to worry and actually doubt, like, was she a ~real woman~ because SH had never been a problem for her. Like, is this the expectation we've created in women, as a group, that there's something *wrong* with you if it doesn't happen to you?

Like, I remember when another friend on twitter got her first rape threat in a blog comment, and on one level, there was a small chorus of this kind of group assurance of "well, it's kind of a rite of passage; it just means ~at last you are a real feminist blogger~" combined with the awareness of what a sick and fucked up situation this was, that we were treating it that way. :-/

(I also don't really know who the "we" in the first paragraph, second sentence is, either.)

was she a ~real woman~ because SH had never been a problem for her. Like, is this the expectation we've created in women, as a group, that there's something *wrong* with you if it doesn't happen to you?

I...my first reaction to being asked that question would be: is there something wrong with you if rape doesn't happen to you??! SH is sexual violence, it is not sexuality. Even if the harassers themselves think it IS about "attraction" or w/e. That doesn't change the nature of the interaction from assault to a consensual expression of adult sexuality or wtf ever.

Yeah, but the whole way it's been phrased for hundreds of years of "men shouting that you are pretty, in the street, is a complement" is kind of a hard one to shake. (Maybe it also plays into the insecurity of how women are so constantly judged on looks alone, so that if you are not conventionally attractive and do not get even the regular kind of non-assault, non-stranger compliments, there is also something wrong with you.)

It's complicated, and I'm not going to speak for her because she isn't here. But it was something that triggered a strange chord in me, that I wanted to know why I was resonating with this weirdness.

(I did not feel complimented by being shouted at yesterday, mind. Just... perplexed.)

Well, we all need to decolonize our minds, right? There's personal work along with all other kinds of work (or maybe even at the base of all other work?). Yes it's important to state that the expectation EXISTS, that there is pressure to accept all kinds of sexual harassment and also abuse as a natural part of sexual express in patriarchy, AND at the same time the growth of our personal critique and emotional health and freedom from those expectations is our own journey to take.

BB, have you seen this? I know there's a more appropriate thread for this but I don't have that one bookmarked and I know you have an interest in dapper clothing: http://www.autostraddle.com/fat-booty-butch-buys-a-suit-on-a-budget-237812/

This is very interesting, too, about work clothes - http://www.thenation.com/blog/180361/womens-office-wear-whos-making-rules

Thanks, Carl.

(Girls, boys, art, pleasure, girls, boys, art, pleasure, Armani, Armani, ah-ah-Armani etc etc)

having a terrible couple of hours that i want to talk about here in a min. its to do with planning this girls rock camp thing and starting to feel uncomfortable with how it's developing, and feeling bulldozed and shutting down/withdrawing my ideas as a result. ill write more later. just feeling ugh, also lupus flaring.

:(

I'm sorry. That all sounds stressful and exhausting.

bleh roxy that does not sound good at all

Oh, Roxy, I'm so sorry. That sounds shitty and awful.

I'm on a post-gig high and soaring with crushes x2 and just wow.

needed to get my head together and calm down before posting this, but basically: i was meeting casually with a friend before our official rock camp planning meeting today and just tossing ideas and feelings around, and i mentioned that a dude had volunteered to do a short workshop about women in electronic music, and making electronic music, etc., and how cool and important i thought that was for these girls to learn. she dismissed it and said one of us should teach it instead, and i said "we're all unqualified to teach it compared with him, though" - and she said basically that no man should be teaching anything at the camps. WHICH I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH! i totally understand the need for women-only spaces etc, but the focus of this camp is training these girls to be able to do anything they need to do, and do it well. I feel if we have no women drummers who can teach drumming lessons, then we need a male to teach it (a situation we are actually in right now) rather than have a woman teach them badly. YES women in leadership roles, and YES girls only at the camp, but learn from whoever is coming from the right place and can teach the best - am i out of line or wrong here? we're seriously talking about having a woman who is not a drummer do the drum instruction despite several right on and excellent dude drummers volunteering. is that in the kids' best interest? i feel like making it a woman only space in this situation might benefit us more than the campers? please help.

it came up again later in our meeting when someone said "we should have the girls pick a woman musician they want to be like and then pick that idea apart, like what they like about her and what they want to or can emulate about her songwriting playing, etc" - and i thought but didn't say that we don't need say "a woman musician," because IF A LITTLE GIRL WANTS TO BE PETE TOWNSHEND SHE DAMN WELL CAN and I want her to know that. That is so important to me.

Additionally, was (in before-meeting casual meeting) expressing that i feel like rock camp is prescriptive ("rock", guitars basses and drums only) and that i hope to involve electronic music, and hiphop, and etc, and do a whole camp about sound teching, and etc etc. and she just goes "we can't take that on!" and laughed while typing furiously, like i was crazy. ok. maybe you can't.

it's not like i was saying we need to do this TODAY, but i mean...that's not a crazy idea. that shit is a must if we're really focused on training up girls to hang in the music world.

so much trouble expressing myself due to lupus brain fog, and also questioning what i mean and if i am really thinking what i'm thinking - all lupus things.

You're totally loud and clear. Nothing infuriates me more than people not bothering to hide their disdain for other people's opinions. Also I know next to nothing about music but I agree with you on all three counts.

Yeah I think there's a difference between women-only spaces and girls-only spaces, and competent instruction is key here. Also OTM about expanding beyond rock. Basically I agree with you all around.

like, men are not their peers. they are our peers. right? obv we're not going to have 14 year old boys in there making them uncomfortable.

Yeah exactly. I went to an all girls camp and there were dudes there as counselors. It strikes me as being similar to that. Or male teachers at an all girls school.

xp - having a non-drummer teach drumming is a big mistake. If you've already done as much outreach to solicit female volunteers for these roles as you can, then get a dude, rather than someone who can't do it. It's something that if you don't learn "right" you end up spending way more time unlearning them, and just because it's one of the more physically demanding instruments, learning to play wrong can cause some serious physical problems. And I apologize for sounding like a broken record about ergonomics and drumming, but I think it really is important, and I've seen too many drummers (mostly dudes) end up with repeated stress injuries, etc. from playing wrong.

Definitely expanding the musical scope is a great idea.

As far as the woman musician vs. just any musician thing goes -- I mostly agree with you, but it would be cool (and maybe this is a different workshop/exercise) to highlight woman musicians that might be more obscure but have done things in line with the girls' interests and aesthetics?

totally. that's my concern, that we're going to ruin these drummers especially. they will do that over my dead body.

and regarding the last point, i agree, but we're doing lots to highlight and teach about women in rock every day, and obv they need to learn about women in rock. i just feel like limiting them to a woman musician in such a personal exercise as that particular one wouldn't be helpful.

it just needs to be whoever they want to be like or who they identify with. if they want to be alice cooper then they need to pick him. imo. i would have been hard pressed at age 8 to not pick paul mccartney, and i think if someone had asked me to focus on what exactly i liked about him and what aspects of his playing, presence and songwriting i wanted to and could accomplish myself, it would have been so valuable.

Oh definitely! I mean, at that age, most of my musical "influences" were men, granted that was over two decades ago, and before the internet, but I definitely felt discouraged by thinking that I couldn't be like Peter Murphy or Peter Hook because I was lacking a peter between my legs. (sorry for bad pun)

yeah i want to help them not feel that way! if poss

You're doing the lord's work, roxy

well ty now just to get people to shut up and let me do it. lol.

Oh god I agree so much. You're right about drumming and also about competent teaching. And also about being whoever you wanna be. I waited way too long to start bc the music I liked was almost always being played by men and I thought I couldn't hang. ;_; but true.

yes!

let them pick Randy Rhoads or Lita Ford or whoever, but THEN blow their minds when a great instructor (m or f) *shows* them at 12 'hey here are some cool ways you can do what they do'

that has to be the power of girl camp. if you limit it, you're closing a door.

Yeah, this sounds like a case where idealism and pragmatism are pointing in different directions.

Like, it would be great if you could find 100% female instructors 100% qualified to teach those workshops, but this being the world we live in, we have to work with what we have. I have spent my entire life, when I have no female role models, I pick a male role model and gender-flip. If a female instructor is not available (man, I wish I could do your electronic music workshop but there is an ocean in the way) then get a pro-woman man. But that is my A-number-1 one concern, and my only caveat is make sure you get the *right* dudes.

Because I know that the Right Dudes exist, and I have had many of them as teachers and mentors and friends during my time in music, and I was hugely grateful for their belief and support. But that is urgent and key - that you find dudes who can do the whole "belief and support" - because I have also encountered dudes put in teaching positions who do not bother to conceal their contempt for women and their perceived abilities. (I mean, me, I'm pig-headed; if a dude says "womanhood precludes X*" then I take that as a spur to get my head down and show that idiot, here's me and my dumb ladybody DOING X, AND DOIN' IT BETTER THAN YOU, ARSEHOLE) Make sure you do not let any dudes like this near your camp, because they can ruin a musician way way worse than a bad drum instructor ruining drummers.

Finding dude instructors who will acknowledge "yes, you will face more barriers than men" (because I encounter the opposite attitude, the whole "there are no barriers for women! if there are less women in electronic music, it's because they're not interested/less good/whatever" which is also so so damaging because the message that comes through is "if you don't succeed, it is YOUR FAULT!") but at the same time project "you CAN do this and do it in an AWESOME way".

I dunno; it's like... there are so many men who *will* tear women down. I think it's actually an equally important lesson for young female musicians that ~not all men~ (sorry) think or behave that way, that there are male musicians and mentors and teachers who will take you seriously, will respect and help and mentor you. It's a good counter balance and an "it doesn't have to be this way" lesson.

On role models, it's like... OK, 9/10 of my role models have been men because that's who was out there. However, I do think there's a case to be made for presenting female role models, *because* they can be hard to find. Not in a prescriptive "YOU HAVE TO PICK A WOMAN FOR A ROLE MODEL" but more in a "there are women, out there, who you may not be aware of, doing this thing you like, and if she can do it, you can do it." It's fucking stupid, that in 2014, we have to still be ~raising awareness~ that there are, e.g. female electronic musicians, in fact, that many of the pioneers of electronic music were women, but this is the stupid fucking counteracting of the world's sexism that has to be done. Still. (Can you feel my frustration? (I'm a frustraaaaated maaaaan...)) But there's a difference between "hey there are some people out there like you, doing what you want to do" and "if you want to be Alice Cooper, BE THE BEST DAMN ALICE COOPER YOU CAN BE, GIRL!"

And as to "we can't take that on" well, why the fuck not? I mean, there's a case for being realistic, and not biting off more than you can chew. But women, consistently, undersell their abilities and under-estimate their potential and this is also really damaging and limiting. I know; it's how women are trained to be. But fuck that. (Unless it's just rockism in disguise, in which case, even more urgently, fuck that.)

But basically, yeah, Roxy, you're in the right on everything here. I mean, I'm trying to prise out the kernel of good intention in the midst of all the bullshit. But basically? Stick to your guns, we got your backup here.

I can see a practical reason for sticking to rock if you have limited teaching time and funds, but if you *can* expand the boundaries then you should. And yeah, if you can have excellent female instructors 100% then you should, but there is NO WAY that you should water down the quality of instruction in order to make that happen. I mean, if you ended up with 100% male instructors that would be weird and you might need to consider whether you were the best people to run a girls rock camp, but... that's already not going to happen.

With regard to the "pick a role model", there's definitely a navigation here between leading by example in showing female role models at the forefront, and a prescriptivism/ghettoisation of female roles in music. If a kiddy version of me showed up wanting to know about electronics, I'd be glad to know of Derbyshire and Oram, but I wouldn't be glad to be forced to follow them and not Vorhaus if I wanted to bloody well be Vorhaus.

Basically I'm just following everyone else here with a "Roxy OTM".

yes, roxy is absolutely otm.