Over at Triple J right now it’s “Male Week”. The ABC’s Australia-wide, government funded youth music radio station has dedicated this week to examining what it is to be a man in Australia. Which would be great, if it didn’t look as if they think all the other weeks in the history of music broadcasting were male weeks too.
Every year I, and most people I know, enjoy participating in or at least keeping an ear on the JJJ public vote for the “Hottest 100” songs of the year. Having reached 20 years of the poll, the station has, for the third time in its history, invited people to stretch that bit further and vote for the “Hottest 100 of All Time”. To help us along the way, the station’s website has put up “our potted history of music over the last half century”.
Divided into decades, starting with the 1960s, each page shows between 9 and 15 album covers, with an accompanying note about musicians or bands that influenced the direction of rock and pop. The section on the 60s mentions the Supremes as one of the groups on the Stax/Motown label, and Janis Joplin as appearing at the Monterey Pop Festival. Then the 2000s section mentions the White Stripes. NO other female artists or groups that include women are mentioned. Of the 59 album covers shown to illustrate, NONE were put out by female artists. Janis Joplin appears as one of the musicians on the cover of the album from the Monterey Pop Festival, but apart from that – well, it’s a good thing there’s that naked female bottom on the cover of the Strokes’ album, or girls might think there was no place for them in the music industry.
It is possibly the modern music industry’s greatest tragedy and shame that it has, collectively, worked so hard to exclude women, keep them to the margins or, at best, channel them into narrow moulds. Given everything that worked against them being acknowledged as musicians it is a testament to the astonishing talent, dedication and sheer strength of will of women that any managed to break through and be heard. But break through they did, and they did amazing things, and now Triple J erases them all over again.
I have been trying to think of an appropriate way of drawing Triple J’s attention to what it means when they do things like this. The station’s own Forum has too much going on; a comment there would just disappear. They haven’t breached any codes that make a formal complaint appropriate (just breached their responsibility to their audience and their affirmed principles). I think a letter to Richard Kingsmill, Triple J’s Music Director, is my best chance to be heard. This is a man who cares about his music, so I want to say to him: check how many hits your history page has had. That’s how many people you’ve told that women have no place in music. I don’t want to just write a note, but to really make the case for why this is the kind of screw up that matters, if he really believes they have a commitment to young Australians.
This is not commercial radio. It calls itself “alternative”. It claims to be “all about the music”. It’s a station that specifically declares its interest in young people, and says it wants to “satisfy all your musical and cultural needs”. So, dear Hoydens, this is where I need you. Where does it seem to you that the erasure of female artists distorts the history of popular music? Who has shaped the direction of the art form in ways that deserve to be acknowledged? What would you like this station (that you pay for with your taxes) to hear about how your experience of what matters in music just got pushed off the edge of the page?
Categories: arts & entertainment, gender & feminism, media
Wonder Woman movie marketing machine tied up in knots 
2016 Hoydens: Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher 
Quick Link: the 2014 Ernies are in 
Signal Boost: Wonder Women! 
Hoyden About Town 
I took a course on Youth Rebellion this past year. Every class started with our prof playing a video of some sort that “captured” the music of the age.
I guess there were no women writing or singing during that time period. Well, no, there was Janis Joplin, but no one else.
I loved the prof for so many reasons, but it was rather representative. Even the stuff we did on birth control was mostly about how birth control was also wanted by men as well as women, and almost all of the quotes from the articles we read were from men.
*sigh*
It’s so nice to know that the radio station I thought was originally inspiring and awesome regards me as non-existent or hard-on-fodder. Or that I can’t ACTUALLY play bass, guitar, cello, drums & sing just because I’m a woman?
I’m going to be sending them a letter of complaint because as you said – well, isn’t every other god damned week on Triple J ‘male week’? Would it be to hard for them to play nothing but FEMALE artists for a week? Hell, I do it most of the time on my iPod.
God damnit. Words can not express how infuriating I find this.
What, no Aretha? No groups fronted by women, like Jefferson Airplane? No Nancy Sinatra? No freakin’ Blondie?
I listened to a *lot* of 2JJJ in the 1990s.
I’m staggered that they managed to get through that decade without Hole, or Garbage, or Sonic Youth, or Tori Amos. I didn’t like her music at the time or now, but how can you have the 1990s without Alanis Morissette? I mean, how can you un-include Salt ‘n’ Pepa? Come the hell on Kingsmill.
They’re not just doing a disservice to music, they’re doing a disservice to their own playlist and the sterling job they did providing the soundtrack to so many people’s adolescences.
Write the letter, orlando. Write it good.
It’s not like Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Marcia Hines, Diana Ross, Kate Bush, Dusty Springfield, Tammy Wynette, Suzie Quatro, Kim Wilde, Madonna, Carole King, Helen Reddy, or even Britney Spears had any impact on music /sarcasm and shaking head in disgust.
Even if the compilers were too young or not born yet when “I am Woman” was causing furore that’s no excuse to be ignorant of it if you call yourself a music lover.
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Woman
The song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmExAiCcaPk
No Bjork, Tori Amos, Concrete Blond, L7, Hole, Baby Animals – oh hello there Liam, I was in such a rage I started writing before reading the comments.
I should also add that it’s apparently more about the “male mind” (because you know, the JJJ isn’t about that 90% the time anyway)
Coming up: inside the male skull this week.
“TUESDAY FRILLY ‘ROUND THE EDGES: WHEN YOU DON’T FIT THE MALE STEREOTYPE
WEDNESDAY NO MAN’S LAND: WHERE MEN CAN AND CAN’T GO
THURSDAY WHEN DID YOU BECOME A MAN?
FRIDAY A SPECIAL SHAKEUP: WHAT DO YOU HATE ABOUT MEN? ”
from the hack website http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack
Because nothing says “BREAKING STEREOTYPES”, in fact, like re-enforcing them.
Me head started spinning when I attempted to mentally collate the artists they “forgot” to mention.
At first I considered the option that they might have only wanted to draw attention to so-called ‘alternative’ artists who, in essence, could be considered to have laid the foundations for an ‘alternative’ radio station’s content. Fair enough – but then where are (as fuckpoliteness and Mindy noted) Bjork, Blondie, Hole, etc etc?
And if it’s not meant to be ‘alternative’, then it’s even worse – even noted feminist trade mag Rolling Stone knows to namecheck at least Aretha, Madonna, Britney, Janis and Whitney in situations like this, if not more.
Where’s imaginary Joan Jett when you need her?!
Other names: Liz Phair’s first album is often name-checked for 90s music by, eg, Rolling Stone. Listening to JJJ in the late 90s I would think PJ Harvey can’t be left off anything. Garbage is fronted by Shirley Manson, who was also a songwriter for them at times, and Garbage is fairly important around the same period as grunge popularity morphed back in the direction of pop.
My partner sampled the song selections for their yearly hottest 100 CDs and in the first couple of years (that’s when he looked) they are about 1/3 women artists and/or women-fronted groups.
…No Siouxsie, no Slits, no Sleater-Kinney, no Kirsty McColl, no Tina Turner, no Mamas and Papas, no Pat Benatar, No Chrissie Hynde, no Chrissie Amphlett…
Bjork! I can’t believe I forgot the Prime Elf of the Nineties. Speaking of elves, there’s also Kim Deal of the Pixies/Breeders: I’m not sure how you could have a Seattle grunge movement without those kooky kids.
I also seem to recall the station wearing ears down through repetitive playings of the Fugees. I still can’t hear Lauryn Hill’s voice without being mentally transported to the 8.15am 483 bus that used to take me to school. (Trials of the inner-city youth, etc).
Fergie (the Pea), Cher
Yes I was thinking about Kim Deal as well! How can you ignore her? I think that some of this comes from Triple J’s focus, so that some female singers (and some male), no matter how big in music history, were never going to make it on the basis that they were too mainstream/pop. However, as this list has shown, there are so very many women whose music has had a huge influence on alternative music that to leave them all out is just so conspicuously and gratuitously wrong-headed. Yes in my haste I forgot Liz Phair and PJ Harvey, and how could THEY? They both, particularly Harvey got MAJOR airtime on JJJ! This is making me grouch-y!
Instead of contacting Richard Kingsmill, why not try contacting some of Australia’s leading women musicians. Deborah Conway is someone who comes to mind as unafraid to call out the sexism in the music industry.
Few extra from my music collection
Chrissy Amphlett
Chrissie Hynde
PJ Harvey
Susie & the Banshees
very dissapointing from JJJ
This just makes them look really stupid by missing out obviously important people. It makes them seem like they care more about keeping the list male than actually representing the best music.
And the music important to me? Tracy Chapman, Skunk Anansie, Liz Phair, Pink, Billie Holiday, Bif Naked, Garbage, Catatonia.
I snooped around the website & I think voting is still open until the 7th of July, so we have a lot of time to get some of these female artists on the actual countdown so it’s not as shit as the history list.
I have no idea why they left the whole riot grrrl movement off?! Am I just overestimating how big it was when it happened was becasue of how much I love some of those bands now? I mean if you’re looking for something radical you’d think that Suck My Left One by Bikini Kill would be right up there.
silver belles: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100_alltime/voting/ says voting is closed, it’s my understanding that 28th June was the final day. 7th July is the date the results start being played.
Well. I remember ’90s/ ’00s pop. I know that lots of the women I’m listing are certainly not “alternative”, but we’re talking about a radio station that thinks it’s alternative to talk exclusively about men, so I think it counts! And anyway, I don’t see how you could avoid knowing that the Spice Girls existed, for example. Or Destiny’s Child, Billie Piper, Kylie Minogue, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Dido…
That’s off the top of my (not very musically knowledgeable) head, and excluding women who’ve already been mentioned. If even *I* can think of 8 women or female bands on my own, and nod in recognition at the same number again, how can a *radio station* not come up with any?!
No Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Cat Power…could go on and on…the exclusion of PJ Harvey and The Slits is probably the most offensive part of it to me. It’s annoying, but at the same time not surprising. JJJ are just another component of the malestream media now and they haven’t even really been alternative for years and years. Featuring every new Nick Cave album does not alternative make and anyone who really is into alternative music wouldn’t bother with them these days.
Also, I’ve come to understand “youth culture” as being code for “young male culture”.
Thanks for the input, people, you’ve given me loads of material to bring in.
I don’t have a problem with them spending a week talking about masculinity, if they only included some kind of examination of the extraordinary privliges that maleness incurs (as evidenced by their own website).
Silverbells & Mary: yes, voting is closed. In fact, I only came accross this because I noticed it was the final day for voting and thought I’d better get my act together. Of course it will be interesting to see how the poll pans out.
Totoot: I don’t think I’m likely to get musicians interested in this, because it’s not to do with JJJ’s playlist or who gets airtime. This is just the peripheral materials on their website.
I expect the “History” was given to a fairly junior staff member, and no one bothered to check it; but it shows the prevailing culture. There is also a page where they asked various radio presenters, pop groups and “personalities” to give their top 10 songs. There are 33 lists: 4 women, 2 groups that include women, and 27 men or groups that include only men.
I doubt if Kingsmill is in charge of the website, as he’s the music director. I’m just looking for somewhere to direct a complaint where it might actually be heard by someone who has influence and won’t necessarily dismiss it.
I want them to issue an on-air apology to all the women who make music, for propping up the industry’s sexism, which they should be in the business of challenging.
If you find somewhere to direct a complaint, I’ll write one too.
Me to Orlando. Sheesh.
The website manager at Triple J is Janine Goonan (a woman – gah!), and their contact email address is triplejradio@yourabc.net.au
Their receptionist said that emails sent to this address would be circulated to whoever the writer requests.
I understand your point, and it’s an excellent one that points to gender imbalance in society’s assessment of ‘great’ music. But please don’t deride the Hack program’s Men’s Week. The quickest way to turn men into feminists (i.e. people who believe that the genders should be equal) is to point out to them how patriarchy hurts men as well as women. Hack is examing topics like men’s right of passage into adulthood, male suicide and the patriarchal culture that denies men the right to speak about their emotions, and examining male stereotypes. Put ‘female’ in any of these topics instead of ‘male’ and this would be excellent feminist discourse. Just because we’re talking about men, doesn’t make it any less excellent feminist discourse – because men are hurt by the patriarchy too.
Sweeping and shallow statements like “every week is men’s week” denies the intent and frame of the program’s discourse and enforces gender divides.
I think you missed this bit allie.
Also, coming to feminist sites and carefully explaining things we already know – not a good look.
I didn’t miss that bit actually. I was trying to make the point that the writer makes a really tenuous link between the Hack program and the History list on the Hottest 100 – and implies that one is cancelled out by the other (“which would be great, if…”). They are actually not related – sure, the History list is exclusive – so write about that, and complain to TripleJ (I already have). But what has the Hack program got to do with it? And why belittle its value by making that connection at all?
Also, deriding your fellow commentors with of your sense of intellectual entitlement? Not a good look. Try engaging with the idea I’m putting out there – disagree if you want, whatever – instead of throwing out “duh, I already knew that” responses.
I’m not trying to argue. I’m trying to engage. So how about meeting me halfway?
All of the above, plus can I just reiterate Patti Smith? How could you not have Patti Smith, one of the most influential female artists in rock music? I’m a big fan so I am biased, but she had such a huge impact on so many other artists, it just doesn’t make sense that she’s not there.
They have a forum discussing the list and I did find one thread devoted to female artists, but no discussion of the fact that there are so few on the actual lists. It will be very interesting to see who makes the final 100. I love music and this just makes me so mad, particularly coming from a supposedly liberal and progressive radio station.
Orlando wasn’t belittling it, she was making a case about the ethos of JJJ altogether. It’s not a tenous link.
Deriding my fellow commentators? No that was directed at you being patronising, and you alone. Don’t come to a feminist blog and tell us what we already know please. If you want to engage then listen and read first.
*facepalm*
Actually, I have been reading Hoyden for over a year. This is my first time commenting. Since I find myself being told to shut up and “listen and read first”, it will probably be the last. Thanks so much for your opinion on the post. Thanks also for labelling me “patronising” when we simply could have agreed to disagree, and for assuming that I haven’t been here before and that gives you the right to silence me.
Just a quick question – how long exactly should I “listen and read first” before I’m allowed to “engage”? Will another year do it? Or until I hold exactly the same opinions and use exactly the same language as you?
You should start by reading the post. Orlando did not say that Men’s Week was a bad thing. She said that the Hottest 100 of all time did not feature many women and that this reflected badly on JJJ. “But please don’t deride the Hack program’s Men’s Week.” Where did she say this? I don’t think she did.
“The quickest way to turn men into feminists (i.e. people who believe that the genders should be equal) is to point out to them how patriarchy hurts men as well as women. ” For the third time – we know this. How could you say something like this if you have been reading here for a year? I’m not trying to silence you, I’m trying to make you see that you can’t just assume that we don’t know what you are talking about.
Agree to disagree? On what? You haven’t even acknowledged that you can see the point I’m making.
Can tyou two both take a step back here please?
Particularly, could regular commentors remember the 3-comment rule? I do think it’s a bit rough to accuse allie of malfeasance on her very first comment here – how is that going to welcome other lurkers to express their opinion?
No probs, tigtog. I’m out.
P.S. I agree with Mindy that I don’t see where Orlando derided the Hack Men’s Week programs, she pointed out a jarring juxtaposition. Not the same thing.
Ah, our comments crossed. Oh well.
Sorry for forgetting the three comment rule. I’m taking a time-out now.
Long enough for a hot cup of tea should be enough, I reckon. See you back soon?
Oh yeah, you’re stuck with me 😉
Mindy and Tigtog identified my point, which I could have made more explicit. It’s not that spending a week talking about men is bad, in fact it shows a willingness to acknowledge the role gender plays in our society, and an interest in talking about its effects. However, when they don’t extend that awareness across the rest of what they put out there they fail their own stated ethos.
Marie: the Patti Smith thing made me especially mad. Not even because I’m a huge fan, but because, to summarize the emergence of punk, they wrote that the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Saits “simultaneously hit upon” the punk sound in 1976, with no mention that Patti Smith put out her first album in 1975. It’s so typical of the erasure of women’s contribution to history: nothing counts until a man does it.
Thanks to all those who said they would write to the station too. I’ll keep you posted about what reply I get.
Update: I got a reply this evening from someone called Stef (no title given). Here it is in full. Personally, I think a “We screwed up. We’ll do better next time.” would have done them more credit, but at least it’s not a brush off. What do you think? :
Thanks for taking the time to write in and we appreciate your feedback.
triple j is a station that supports artists, no matter what their gender. If you look at the front page of our website right now you will find that we are currently promoting many female artists in a variety of ways http://triplej.net.au For example, the Lily Allen Live concert is the first of the triple j tv Live series and we feel very proud to have this exclusive triple j intimate performance kicking it off. There is also a Bertie Blackman Live at the Wireless recorded with the triple j Breakfast team. La Roux is this week’s feature album and Sarah Blasko will be featured next week. Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is on the cover of this month’s JMag.
The Hottest 100 of All Time History was intended to be a miniscule snapshot of significant releases and turning points of the past 50 years and to start the conversation with the audience as to who else should be on that list, which is something that many people have been doing on the forums. We prefaced the timeline with a paragraph stating that “It’s by no means definitive but it’s sure to get your musical synapses sparking.” We also did a call out at the end encouraging people talk amongst themselves and let us know of anything we may have missed, “If this timeline has given you The Bends, you’re mad for a Girltalk mashup or just think there’s something we’ve definitely overlooked, we want to know.”
In that spirit, however, we have taken your comments on board and will be adding some female artists to the list in time for the countdown next week.
@ orlando:
Yeah. Well.
It’s arsecovering to the max really, isn’t it?
The last sentence is OK.
@tigtog & orlando
that e-mail would be a lot better if it didn’t /wasn’t
a) reek of tokenism
b) the exact same reply i got.
“Hi
Thanks for taking the time to write in and we appreciate your feedback.
triple j is a station that supports artists, no matter what their gender. If you look at the front page of our website right now you will find that we are currently promoting many female artists in a variety of ways http://triplej.net.au For example, the Lily Allen Live concert is the first of the triple j tv Live series and we feel very proud to have this exclusive triple j intimate performance kicking it off. There is also a Bertie Blackman Live at the Wireless recorded with the triple j Breakfast team. La Roux is this week’s feature album and Sarah Blasko will be featured next week. Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is on the cover of this month’s JMag.
This week on Hack we are focusing on men. This is in conjunction with Reach Out and in support of aiding more open communication between both sexes. This is not about which sex is superior or dominant, this is to help raise awareness of issues that affect men as well as women. Issues such as mental health difficulties, alcohol + other drugs, family + other relationships, managing independence, loss + grief, physical health issues, safety + violence, school, uni + TAFE, sex + pregnancy and sexuality + coming out.
The Hack team took a great deal of pride in thoroughly researching some of the issues and prejudices that males face every day.
The Hottest 100 of All Time History was intended to be a miniscule snapshot of significant releases and turning points of the past 50 years and to start the conversation with the audience as to who else should be on that list, which is something that many people have been doing on the forums. We prefaced the timeline with a paragraph stating that “It’s by no means definitive but it’s sure to get your musical synapses sparking.” We also did a call out at the end encouraging people talk amongst themselves and let us know of anything we may have missed, “If this timeline has given you The Bends, you’re mad for a Girltalk mashup or just think there’s something we’ve definitely overlooked, we want to know.”
In that spirit, however, we have taken your comments on board and will be adding some female artists to the list in time for the countdown next week. ”
no shit that’s the e-mail I got. i smell a rat.
As a lover of non-mainstream music it’s a bit of a big fat bummer to see what was once a great alternative station (I was a listener of the original Double J) promoting the likes of Lily Allen. This is why my radio is stuck on 2SER.
This isn’t exactly the same point as orlando’s, but thus far the actual results of the poll (so, chosen by listeners not by Triple J staff) are not exactly high on women performers. Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy with vocals by Shara Nelson seemed to be the only one in #100 to #91.
I see that their have amended their “potted history” as per above emails. From memory they have included PJ Harvey, Dusty Springfield, Patty Smith, Portishead, Donna Summer, Madonna, Missy Elliot and/or Missy Higgins and others. (I can’t remember if Blondie was there or not which I had though was a big oversight in their original list). Each decade now has at least a couple of women included.
Anyhow I’m glad that they have addressed the concerns (its arguable whether they have done it perfectly or not, I don’t know that you could talk about music in the 90s without mentioning Alanis but that’s only MHO) but positively galling that they had to prompted to include women in the list in the first place.
Good to hear of some improvements rayedish. I don’t know that Alanis got a lot of JJJ airplay in the 90s (although she’s no more pop than The Offspring, who were big faves).
I’m not expecting great things from the poll results themselves. The last “hottest 100″ of all time ran in 1998 and there’s only a couple of songs that I know of that have a woman artist performing (and I recognise at least 90 songs on the 1998 list). Pretty shocking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_J_Hottest_100,_1998#Hottest_100_of_all_time
Orlando, TBO and I just had a look through those lists, and I just wanted to say a resounding thank you and well done for this post and for writing to JJJ. As noted already it’s arguably imperfect, however MUCH nicer to see some of those great female names, and yes, Blondie is now included.
Up to (down to?) 61 and Shara Nelson is still the only woman singing. Wow.
And as of #31, I think Shara Nelson is still the only women singing. There is also very low represenation of bands with any women musicians (The Smashing Pumpkins did, as one example).
I think this shows how important the original issue is. Obviously Triple J can’t dictate people’s favourite songs to them, but is strongly influential in what names come to mind at voting time both in its airplay choices and the names put forward on their website and other promotions for the competition. It is sadly impossible to say now whether having influential women musicians named in the history site would have changed the outcome of the poll.
I think there’s something even more fundamental, and sad, going on here. This is supposed to be the “Hottest 100 of All Time” (capital A, capital T), and people were asked to submit their top 10. I think even if your average music consumer has plenty of female artists they like, they are unlikely to include them when asked to name the ten songs that are the greatest ever. Whenever words like “greatest”, “most important”, “best”, “most influential” and so on, are used in any context we are taught to think of men (I think this is exactly what happened when JJJ put their history pages together). We just aren’t given models in our formative years of women having places beside men in “history”, just occasionally in that disreputable annex “women in history” or “women in rock”. It’s going to take a couple more generations of us modelling a different kind of list to our children before we can hope to see a fair representation.
So now women are being ‘disappeared’ from the music listening/choosing process by the SMH in an article entitled ‘Revenge of the dads’:http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/golden-oldies-infiltrate-triple-j-list/2009/07/10/1246732472629.html
The final result is very poor. I’m pretty sure that only two women feature as vocalists on the entire 100 songs, and they’re both guest vocalists for Massive Attack. (My partner thinks the Pixies song may have Kim Deal doing backing vocals too.) There’s a few more groups with a woman performer on an instrument: The Smashing Pumpkins had D’arcy Wretzky on bass (I think that’s Wretzky’s period with them anyway), The Pixies had Kim Deal on bass, New Order had Gillian Gilbert on keyboard.
Triple J just announced on Twitter that they will be discussing the gender imbalance on air: “We’ll be talking about the #hottest100 gender imbalance today on @triplejhack . 5:30PM. Have your say!”
Nice work to all those who wrote in and got that page changed.
In addition to orlando’s comment about women never appearing in frames labelled “the greatest”, someone on Twitter pointed at The Rap Against Rockism. The mention of gender in there reminds me of some of the geek world problems: women in addition to not being “the greatest” also aren’t authentic and rebellious and rock’n’r0ll (or geek, in geek communities): women are the mainstream, they’re the force that we true alternative rock listeners push back against, etc. Women stop boys being boys. In this narrative, women aren’t the voice of youth or counterculture, they’re the voice of curfews and sobriety, and so women’s voices don’t appear in youth experience or memories.
A nice young man called James just called me for a soundbite for the Hack slot this afternoon. I’m happy it’s getting talked about, so we’ll see how they get on.
(That’s a really interesting aspect of it, Mary. Isn’t it bizarre that women can be painted as mainstays of the status quo when we’re so relentlessly excluded from it’s power structures?)
That’s really great Orlando!
The verdict: while it’s definitely better that they talk about it than pretend it isn’t there, the overall feel was of PR damage control. They even tried to act as if their history had included albums by women all along, though it was good to see their last caller gave them some stick about it, so the presenter had to admit they’d changed it after “feedback”. Obviously I said quite a lot that didn’t make the soundbite! There were a few good comments, plus short interviews with female musos trying to walk the line between admitting the music industry is blatantly riddled with sexism, and not wanting to sound like troublemakers (“remember – must be suitably grateful for JJJ promoting me”).
And a big whack with a clue-by-four for the dude who said that it was because female singers just can’t convey emotion the way the male voice can.
And a big whack with a clue-by-four for the dude who said that it was because female singers just can’t convey emotion the way the male voice can.
Yes, silly muggins forgot his script – women are too emotional, dontcha know? Too emotional to be properly musical or properly rock and roll, that’s the script. Eejit.
Yeah, that guy was a real charmer.
I liked what the academic Catherine Strong had to say about the way that female voices get forgotten and then (re)discovered. Unfortunately its so true, and not just about women in grunge music, as was her specific example, but I’d argue women in any male dominated field.
Rayedish – you could see exactly the effect she was talking about in a couple of the younger female callers who seemed to think the explanation was that there just weren’t many women playing music until recently. They really proved the points we’ve all been making about the way “history” is constructed and communicated.
Oops. Should have read over here before posting back over on the other thread. [hides head].
Hi Orlando, my name’s Frances and I was wondering if you would mind if I quoted this entry, as well as some of your comments on this entry, in a paper I’m writing. I’m doing a short case study / description of this debate around the Hottest 100 as part of a discussion of the political significance of the Australian feminist blogosphere.
Let me know if you would prefer not to be involved, and if you have any questions I’d be happy to answer them also! franceshaw AT gmail DOT com. Thanks for the great post 🙂
There’s a nice little piece of snark in James Jeffrey’s Strewth! column in The Australian this morning.
Tim Dunlop’s just put up his top 5 women artists over at Crikey.