Tiny Alligator

Women of my generation: stop trying to be hip and dig the fuck in

I have a theory about all this Palin madness: her instant stardom goes beyond the usual American craving for starfuckery. In a fluffy news piece on NPR this morning, I heard middle-aged women in a conservative mid-west town expressing admiration at how this woman was being herself, loudly, on a national stage. These were women who had grown up as the third or fourth generation to have the vote, women who gained abortion rights and equal-pay legislation in their lifetimes. They were surprised, awed: she has a strong personality! She digs in for what she believes! And she’s in a powerful position!

And that’s the reason they cited for pledging McCain/Palin their votes; no mention at all of any of the laughable policies favoured by this woman with a strong personality.

In high school I took a women’s literature class from a teacher who was probably in her late fourties, a fiercely intelligent, beautiful, independent woman who used literature to remind us that woman are often unaware of their own power. We all rolled our eyes and sighed: we knew that we were strong and equal, blah blah blah, please stop lecturing us and let us get on to our two college degrees and successful career-family life balance.

But, hearing the awe in the voices of women cheering for Palin, it has occurred to me that perhaps my generation has taken the message of feminism a little too much for granted.

The recent (Canadian) edition of Adbusters magazine features a treatise on “Hipster: the Dead End of Western Civilisation”. In the title article, Douglas Haddow paints a picture of my generation as “lost… desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves.” I believe that this rings especially true for young women.

This sentiment can be seen in the Palin phenomenon: young hipster-feminists of my generation and boomer-feminists of our mothers’ are clinging to the notion of a woman in power, and the breadth of Palin’s instant stardom derives from the fact that we are all a little afraid of becoming that woman ourselves. If we were all taking full advantage of equal rights and giving our own strong personalities sufficient air, perhaps Palin wouldn’t be such a phenomenon, and we could get past her gender to actually examine her policy stance.

I see a sad parallel in the music world. Since moving to New York city on my own to start a big band of my own, many, many people, mostly women over thirty, have expressed awe that I have undertaken such a venture. A young woman! On her own! Writing her own original music and getting it played! By the best musicians in New York! What guts she must have.

I always feel a little guilty when people say things like this to me. Inherent in their comments is the inference that they themselves were not bold like this when they were young women. I don’t want to make light of how insanely difficult the last six months have been, and I’m pleased as punch with myself for getting here. But I’m not an anomaly among young creative musicians, and I’m disturbed by the notion that it’s surprising to people that a woman would be leading a band at my age.

To bring back Haddow’s point, however, I’m also disturbed when I look around me at other women of my generation who are making music. He is especially critical of the indie-rock scene in his article, and I see a parallel in jazz. Female singers who don’t worry about the technicalities of singing, like having a good tone, time feel or grasp of pitch, are embraced as hip and feminine. Reviewers use words like ‘coy’ and ‘subtle’ to mask the singers’ total lack of personality and skill. They are hip and blase: as Haddow claims hipsters are clinging to things which seem real in place of becoming real themselves, so jazz singers recycle the same (exceptional, the first thirty times you hear them) standards in fear of furthering the tradition by writing something real of their own. There is absolutely no excuse for making someone else’s music.

There are, of course, many fantastic exceptions, and I am surrounded here by strong women of all ages making amazing music of all sorts. But, regrettably, these are not the women who get the adoring starfucky articles in their college magazines or a week opening at the Bluenote (this week, ahem). And so the picture of female success continues to be one of deference, coyness and subtlety.

A pox on such women who feel they can coast with zero original content and who peddle themselves as coy and cute to sell a shitload of records. It is because of them that I continually encounter surprise when I say that I write my own music, hire my own bands, produce my own concerts. This is how music is made. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to sell you something, and is likely using her body to try and sell it.

And a pox on women who are coasting in their own lives, and so feel that they can vote for Palin in lieu digging in and having their own personality and opinions.