Female rock/punk bands in Ireland? (1 Viewer)

[Juno]

I'm really uncomfortable with this sort of mentality for a number of reasons - mostly because it's one used, for example, against loud gay rights activists, and that in fact making a distinction of "gay rights" at all from human rights is actually just adding to the problem. I could explain the issues with this but I'm hoping people at least why that sort of invisibility doesn't really help that cause at all.

While I vaguely see where you're coming from, I don't agree. I also object to your assumption of any sort of 'mentality' on my part just because I would rather be in a band than a 'girl band'. I know all too well why that term was used but I feel like we have passed the point where embracing this is positive or useful. Being a musician requires a huge amount of investment in terms of time and money, and often (usually?) this is done for the love of music, rather than a desire to be political. What you are essentially asking people to do is to assume a political position ("I'm in a girl band" "I'm a gay actor/footballer/rugby player" etc) when they might not wish to be defined by their gender or sexuality, but rather by their ability. This is of course very different for a woman in a band than for someone who is gay as one can usually tell a person's gender by looking, but not their sexuality. For that reason and many more I feel your analogy does not hold. Gay rights and the lack of women in rock music are very different issues requiring very different approaches. Nobody (again, in Ireland) is persecuted for being a woman at a rock gig. You may have a few comments from arseholes but that's hardly life-threatening. Therefore I can work against sexism by trying to be a competent musician and songwriter, who is proud to be female, but who does not wish to be solely defined by that. You may not be happy with this but you cannot force people to take a position if they do not wish to. What you see as encouraging invisibility, I see as encouraging normalcy.

For the same reasons I don't think that increased female invisibility(me not going through with this) would help anything.

If you think that doing this night would be helpful then do it! You don't need the permission of thumped, nor the agreement of me or anyone else. If you are regularly attending gigs in your area then surely you will meet or will have met at least one female musician. If you don't know any others, maybe ask her who she knows. Most of us tend to know (or at least know of) each other.

I don't see having workshops that are specifically "girl friendly" would help an awful lot - maybe in the long term, but how do you even go about that? If I advertise such a thing as "female friendly" would you be angry at me for still bothering to distinct females at all instead of acting like there's no issue "officially"? If I didn't, how would women know beforehand it was female friendly? To me, that sort of comes across as more patronising than what I'm proposing.

Well again we must disagree. As for how this could be done? See Girl Rock Camp's post. I used to think much like you did. I played Ladyfest Dublin and I thought that the girls who organised it (all feminists although far more fabulous than frumpy) did an amazing job. It was great seeing so many women both onstage and off but I now think that the solution to this issue needs to be something further reaching. At a gig like this your audience is probably going to be people in their 20s and 30s who, if they were going to be in bands, would already have done so. Now maybe a few people will find new band members or get gigs and if so, then brilliant. However, most people I know in bands started playing in their teens. This is the time when encouragement and support might really make a difference. Maybe an all-ages gig would be beneficial? Not suggesting you do one btw, it's just a thought.

, or a couple of ex-"girl band" types who are perhaps misplacing the source of their issues, doesn't mean there isn't still a potentially huge positive effect.

Well miaow! I can assure you I am very well aware of the source of any issues I might have. Look, I'm not trying to attack you, nor am I 'angry' at you. I just happened to disagree with you. There's a difference. I spent over ten years in bands. My perspective is going to be very different to yours. If you want to put on a night, just do it! I hope it goes well for you.

 

[snakybus]

less talking more rocking, ladies

 

[shower another shower]

Says you in a boy band.

 

[Green Goblin]

While I vaguely see where you're coming from, I don't agree. I also object to your assumption of any sort of 'mentality' on my part just because I would rather be in a band than a 'girl band'. I know all too well why that term was used but I feel like we have passed the point where embracing this is positive or useful. Being a musician requires a huge amount of investment in terms of time and money, and often (usually?) this is done for the love of music, rather than a desire to be political.

I think writing this night off as purely political is really demeaning, as far as I'm concerned improving and showcasing diversity & gender balance in music is something that's good for music - not just politics.

What you are essentially asking people to do is to assume a political position ("I'm in a girl band" "I'm a gay actor/footballer/rugby player" etc) when they might not wish to be defined by their gender or sexuality, but rather by their ability.

I think there's a degree of naivety here because there are always going to be social implications of such things. It's not me personally that's creating these.

The thing is I Don't think there's anything wrong with saying "Well I'm a girl who plays music" and if I were to push you were a rational argument otherwise, I Don't really think I'd get one. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, it doesn't make the music any worse and again, music has often fed off the different cultural identities of the individuals creating it, and how they interact.

This is of course very different for a woman in a band than for someone who is gay as one can usually tell a person's gender by looking, but not their sexuality. For that reason and many more I feel your analogy does not hold. Gay rights and the lack of women in rock music are very different issues requiring very different approaches. Nobody (again, in Ireland) is persecuted for being a woman at a rock gig. You may have a few comments from arseholes but that's hardly life-threatening. Therefore I can work against sexism by trying to be a competent musician and songwriter, who is proud to be female, but who does not wish to be solely defined by that. You may not be happy with this but you cannot force people to take a position if they do not wish to. What you see as encouraging invisibility, I see as encouraging normalcy.

You don't really have an argument here. You point out that fighting for gay rights isn't exactly like improving gender balance in music, but my point was that opposition to them often gets the exact same sort of terrible logic. Do you really believe you can work against sexism simply by being a competent musician?

Again this is where the activism thing crosses over - there are many people that believe the same thing of LGBTs, racial minorities etc. that instead of campaigning for equality they should show they can personally be a good example. But the thing is, that this is generally only likely to affect their life personally, to improve their circumstance, and not those of others. These things work best when we pool our efforts, and "a good example" isn't really enough to change people's minds. While it's often an underlying assumption, sexism and imbalanced gender ratios are down to a lot more than just expecting girls to be shite musicians - therefore it is utterly wrong of you to say that keeping your head down and working hard at it will make enough of a difference. It's also making the implication that maybe other female musicians aren't trying hard enough, and I Don't see why anyone should be expected to try harder purely because of their gender.

You are arguing for invisibility, and personally I find that rather horrible. I don't have to force you to take any position, but I am telling you personally that your position causes more trouble than good for those who actually try to make a positive difference, since you're against that by default.

If you think that doing this night would be helpful then do it! You don't need the permission of thumped, nor the agreement of me or anyone else. If you are regularly attending gigs in your area then surely you will meet or will have met at least one female musician. If you don't know any others, maybe ask her who she knows. Most of us tend to know (or at least know of) each other.

OK, but I still dislike your mentality and consider it an obstacle to what I'm trying to achieve.

Well again we must disagree. As for how this could be done? See Girl Rock Camp's post. I used to think much like you did. I played Ladyfest Dublin and I thought that the girls who organised it (all feminists although far more fabulous than frumpy) did an amazing job. It was great seeing so many women both onstage and off but I now think that the solution to this issue needs to be something further reaching. At a gig like this your audience is probably going to be people in their 20s and 30s who, if they were going to be in bands, would already have done so. Now maybe a few people will find new band members or get gigs and if so, then brilliant. However, most people I know in bands started playing in their teens. This is the time when encouragement and support might really make a difference. Maybe an all-ages gig would be beneficial? Not suggesting you do one btw, it's just a thought.

But the "far reaching" suggestions you have are basically just to keep your head down and work at it, which again sounds like the arguments conservatives try to push on minorities.

I don't think it's fair to say bands are never formed past their teens. I've found a lot of local bands here tend to be formed when people are more stable in their 20s. Hopefully the Kino will open as an all ages venue, and that'll help people a lot. Perhaps we can have workshops and the like too - but they'll be revolving around the gigs, not in place of.

Well miaow! I can assure you I am very well aware of the source of any issues I might have. Look, I'm not trying to attack you, nor am I 'angry' at you. I just happened to disagree with you. There's a difference. I spent over ten years in bands. My perspective is going to be very different to yours. If you want to put on a night, just do it! I hope it goes well for you.

Okay.

 

[Green Goblin]

First off this is not a personal attack on you this is my personal response to the post above, others may have a different view but hows never.

You really need to go post riot grrl for a bit, this isn't Washington and its not the early nineties any more. Of course its ok to take influence and what not but its not an "economic scene theory" by any means, plus I'm not a musician but I do to gigs.

For the best part of ten years I've been surrounded by musicians through friendships, house mates and partners. I've had plenty of opportunities to learn an instrument or be a part of something, no shortage of gear to learn on etc (mostly male encouragement too might I add) but I've just never been bothered and I'm fairly ok with the fact that I still struggle to hold a guitar properly its not because I'm afraid of the consequences of interrupting some dick riff love in with queef rock I'm just happy enough to sit back and be entertained be it by a male or a female musicians.

From my experience the only boundaries in place in Dublin(sic) are the ones you set yourself. If I wanted to start something in the morning I'm sure someone would be good enough to help me along . Not because I'm a helpless girl but its another person making their own music.


For years a vested interest in riot grrl/queercore bands coming off of the same record labels clouded my judgement in regards to music. Once you start viewing the world with a gender neutral less chip on the shoulder eye things become a lot easier. I don't walk into gigs and give extra cudos to a band because its made up of or partly made up of women. If they're good they're good regardless of gender. From the people I know who put on gigs I've never ever once heard any kind of gender bias ever and if there ever was I can only imagine the backlash.

I don't know why there are fewer women musicians but its a ratio thing as already mentioned here to. You can't force people to like a certain style of music etc and I'm 100% sure its not because women don't feel safe at gigs. I actually think that line is fairly offensive to male gig goers here tbh. I haven't seen anyone mosh in a while and I tend to stay clear of windmillers but tarring everyone with the same one big brush is fairly horrible. Especially when most of the guys I know would be upset if they thought or heard women felt like this. So I really can't see it being a reason.

As for the bass thing, the bass sounds fucking cool that's the why.

To be honest, a lot of these same points were raised and dealth with, especially the "evidence of bias" sort of thing. It kind of looks like you very lightly skim read the thread.

Saying the only boundaries are the ones you set yourself to me is just being ignorant of the fact that there is a wider set of effects in place and only leads to self blame on failure. It's healthy to blame the system. Anytime I see people who've "Moved on" from being the victim nearly always turn around and be massive assholes about it towards those more vulnerable than them. There is a problem here, and people are negatively affected by it. It's not something unsolvable though - so there's no reason to associate the acceptance of wider society being at fault as a negative. But if people only look at it in terms of personal boundaries, things will be slow to change, if ever.

 

[ann post]

I'm basically trying to put together a showcase night for women & girls in the music scene of Ireland - but it seems like there are very few girls in bands at all.

If anyone know of any bands, I would appreciate being put in contact them as I'm mostly drawing blanks.

OK, but I still dislike your mentality and consider it an obstacle to what I'm trying to achieve.

So you'd like to put together a showcase thingy for women, so long as they perceive the nature of it as you would like them to. I have trouble with women too. we should talk.

 

[Green Goblin]

So you'd like to put together a showcase thingy for women, so long as they perceive the nature of it as you would like them to. I have trouble with women too. we should talk.

But she doesn't want to be part of it anyway, so it's irrelevant? You can't blame me for not representing a specific subset of women who do not want to be respresented. If they're going to go all Maggie Thatcher on this that's their biz. But that's obviously them opting out of this too.

 

[ann post]

But she doesn't want to be part of it anyway, so it's irrelevant? You can't blame me for not representing a specific subset of women who do not want to be respresented. If they're going to go all Maggie Thatcher on this that's their biz. But that's obviously them opting out of this too.

the combination of bold type and mention of thatcher pushes it very close to an invocation godwins law, wouldn't you think?

 

[Juno]

. It's also making the implication that maybe other female musicians aren't trying hard enough, and I Don't see why anyone should be expected to try harder purely because of their gender.

WTF? Where do you get this shit from? My point in a nutshell is that while showcases are all well and good, real change is more likely to come from the efforts of the women who are playing gigs week in, week out (and that doesn't include me as I don't play anymore) and from expanding an activist focus to trying to engage younger girls who might like to get involved with music but who have no idea how. You might find my way of thinking offensive; I find yours concrete, dichotomous and manipulative. Ann Post is right. You're about two posts from comparing us to Hitler just because we don't expressly agree with your every sentiment. I will not be replying to you again.

 

[shower another shower]

Should do an aspergers night.

 

[evil bandit]

Amen.A forum exclusively for women isn't going to do anything but foster an us/them attitude.

And to get a load of pervy fake logins....

 

[Unicron]

Should do an aspergers night.

Harsh

 

[Ewa]

I kinda hoped that girls input in this discussion will blow it into more peaceful waters...
Lot's of interesting issues there, and i get where all the anger comes from,
Also as it 's often the case on the internet, the overall tone of the discussion put me off. And it's present on both fronts. Instead of talking through issues , the focus is on -"I'm smarter, I'm more experienced- and you're not, I'm well informed-you're ignorant, I'm strong- you're weak, my opinions are clear-yours are vague and so on and so on..."
Everyone's been through less or more shit in their lives, and there are lots of internal and external factors that create obstacles on our paths, the main thing is young girls( and probably boys too) need to be shown a different ways of exploring music than what's given to them in the media and schools.
Surprised no one came up with it yet, put I suggest the femmefest to be the Girl Rock Camp Fundraiser". (heard Pussy Riot were taken under Yoko Ono's wing - fair play to her).
I probably could organize the equivalent in Dublin.
I'd be careful about the way the info is put together so it represents the whole idea in a right way.

 

[GirlsRockCampIE]

I kinda hoped that girls input in this discussion will blow it into more peaceful waters...
Lot's of interesting issues there, and i get where all the anger comes from,
Also as it 's often the case on the internet, the overall tone of the discussion put me off. And it's present on both fronts. Instead of talking through issues , the focus is on -"I'm smarter, I'm more experienced- and you're not, I'm well informed-you're ignorant, I'm strong- you're weak, my opinions are clear-yours are vague and so on and so on..."
Everyone's been through less or more shit in their lives, and there are lots of internal and external factors that create obstacles on our paths, the main thing is young girls( and probably boys too) need to be shown a different ways of exploring music than what's given to them in the media and schools.
Surprised no one came up with it yet, put I suggest the femmefest to be the Girl Rock Camp Fundraiser". (heard Pussy Riot were taken under Yoko Ono's wing - fair play to her).
I probably could organize the equivalent in Dublin.
I'd be careful about the way the info is put together so it represents the whole idea in a right way.

Girls Rock Camp Fundraiser, yes please!!!

 

[Theseus Mock]

There should be some sort of musical equivalent of the Rose of Tralee for indie bands. Maybe Jim Carroll could be the host?

 

[GirlsRockCampIE]

Where are my replies to Juno?

As a member of the female persuasion who used to be in a band I'm maybe not best placed to answer the question as to why more girls aren't in bands, but a couple of things came to mind while reading this thread.

I've played a few 'female band showcases'/ladyfest over the years, and although at the time I thought they might be useful in terms of encouraging women in rock music or whatever, I now think that maybe they're not a great idea. One of the things that used to piss me off was that every interview we ever did referred to us as a 'girl band'. Never just as a band. Also, we were often referred to as Riot Grrrl. Now to my mind RG as a movement/thing/scene died out some time in the mid-90s and so it's plain inaccurate if nothing else to refer to current bands containing wimmins as such. There seems to be a serious lack of understanding as to what the specific term 'riot grrrl' referred to. It did not mean 'any rock/punk band comprised wholly or in part of females'. Not that I think anyone was trying to be insulting by using the term, but I think that unintentionally it ends up pigeon-holing band members as being women first, musicians second, when really what we want is the opposite.

The second point that occurred to me is that the biggest obstacle to women being in bands is probably themselves. Now this may be for societal or cultural reasons but in fairness women have made great strides into plenty of other female-dominated industries so why not this? In my experience it is harder to be taken seriously when you're a girl in a band (or a band full of girls). You get more than a few snide remarks from sound engineers or promoters, and a lot of shocked "wow you guys are actually pretty good," as if the automatic expectation was that you'd be shite. However, there are also plenty of very sound people (men and women) who will be nothing but helpful and encouraging and so overall the obstacles are nothing that can't be overcome with a bit of moaning, a lot of rehearsing, and a brass neck.

In fact I think the latter is probably the biggest impediment to girls being in bands. In my experience the main thing that made me reluctant to join new bands was feeling intimidated and that I wouldn't be up to a good enough standard as a musician (possibly correctly...) For some reason this lack of self-confidence seems to afflict girls more than guys (this isn't just in music - it's been well established in psychological research that as girls progress through their teenage years their self-confidence decreases whereas boys' self-confidence increases over the same time period). Therefore what I now think would be particularly helpful in encouraging girls to join bands would not be organising showcases of other female-dominated bands, but instead maybe providing lessons or workshops in instrumentation or sound production that are explicitly girl-friendly. If you know what you're at, you're far more likely to feel confident enough to take part.

::clef:: .|..|

Hi Juno!
Thanks for jumping in, your post was very interesting. I totally understand the frustration that comes from being referred to as a "girl band". Boy bands get to be punk bands, post-punk bands, rock bands, reggae bands, ska bands, or whatever type of bands, whereas bands where the people happen to be female are referred to as "girl bands". Attitudes like this just feed into the idea that to be a woman and make music is to somehow differ from the norm. It's normal to be white, male and heterosexual when you are in a band. Thus - it's all about the music! (I am paraphrasing here from this article, which is being translated for our upcoming website: http://maedchenmannschaft.net/wer-zensiert-hier-eigentlich-wen/). So you are constantly confronted with this reality of differing from the norm - whether it is dumb comments, stupid questions, unbelieving gazes (wow! She can really play!) or whatever. So I think it is a totally legitimate attitude to think - I am sick of being labelled a girl band! I just want to be a musician!

The same goes for being labelled riot grrrl. Personally, I am a huge fan of riot grrrl, it really inspired me a lot, but so did lots of other things! It is narrow minded when (mostly male) people see a bunch of girls or women playing music and CAN'T THINK OF ANY WORD TO DESCRIBE IT EXCEPT FOR RIOT GRRRL! How about "freak folk dream pop" or whatever!
However I still love it when bands call themselves riot grrrl bands, because it is such a cool genre and you can still do a lot with it.

With regards to your point on the biggest obstacle to woman being in bands being themselves - you then follow this up with the instances of sexism that are all too common when being a woman in a band. Snide remarks from promoters, engineers etc. So I think it can't all just fall on women ourselves to combat sexism - men also have to take responsibility for ending sexism!

You are so spot on with regards to teenage girls self-confidence decreasing. In fact, everything you said about feeling intimidated and worrying about not being up to a good enough standard are really common reasons girls cite for not being more active in many different areas, including music. I know from personal experience that these were barriers for me to getting involved in music throughout my teens (I wanted to make music since I was 12 or 13, but didn't start until I was 20 / 21).
And I totally agree that it would be more helpful to provide lessons or workshops in instrumentation or sound production that are explicitly girl friendly as a means of improving self confidence to do these things...
Which....drum roll...
Is why we are setting up the Girls Rock Camp Ireland! To directly combat the issues you mentioned above - this is our blurb:
We want to empower women* and girls* to discover their musical and artistic possibilities through learning instruments, writing songs, forming bands and performing. We want to demonstrate that every genre of music and every technical job and creative endeavor can be available to any girl* or women* that wants to explore it. We want to destroy the traditions and eradicate the myths that prevent women* and girls* from participating in the (until now) male dominated Irish and international music scene.

We are having our first meeting in Exchange Dublin on Thursday October 25th from 7pm to 10pm and I would really love if you would think about coming along. We really need voices from women who are and who have been active in the music scene. Either way, it would be totally cool if you would drop a line to [email protected].

 

[wild_cat]

To be honest, a lot of these same points were raised and dealth with, especially the "evidence of bias" sort of thing. It kind of looks like you very lightly skim read the thread.

Saying the only boundaries are the ones you set yourself to me is just being ignorant of the fact that there is a wider set of effects in place and only leads to self blame on failure. It's healthy to blame the system. Anytime I see people who've "Moved on" from being the victim nearly always turn around and be massive assholes about it towards those more vulnerable than them. There is a problem here, and people are negatively affected by it. It's not something unsolvable though - so there's no reason to associate the acceptance of wider society being at fault as a negative. But if people only look at it in terms of personal boundaries, things will be slow to change, if ever.

On that note I'm off to view the .gif thread like I originally came here to do.

 

[pete]

Where are my replies to Juno?

any posts with links in them made from accounts with <5 posts go into the moderation queue. it's an anti-spam thing. sorry.

 

[GirlsRockCampIE]

any posts with links in them made from accounts with <5 posts go into the moderation queue. it's an anti-spam thing. sorry.

Cool, thanks Pete!

 

[Cormcolash]

Does anyone want to join my girl band?