In a field called rock 'n' roll, girls pick up the microphone

This article was first published in Youthology on June 20, 2023

On June 12, Weibo user "_Tianqi's" released a self-reported statement, revealing the fact that Guan Xiaotian, the lead singer of Dirty Fingers, sexually harassed her.

The rebellious spirit in rock and punk music has undoubtedly given many people a real and strong vitality. But it is undeniable that misogyny is also deeply ingrained in this culture. In rock culture, it seems that music creation, band composition, instruments, and music scenes are all attached to masculinity and dominated by men. It is not uncommon for female musicians and fans to be sexually harassed and assaulted. The rock music circle has even coined the word "guoer" to describe women who have sexual relations with male musicians.

So, can girls create their own rock music and pick up the microphone that belongs to women? Just as we have experienced the courage of girls to speak out in the MeToo movement, in the field of rock music, there are also female musicians and fans who are pursuing female rock and express their position through their own creations. , fighting for women’s rights.

Here are the stories of the girls who rock.

01 "Protect girls and implement it"?

Sisi used to be a regular player on the rock scene.

In junior high school, Sisi heard "21 Guns" from the band Green Day for the first time because of the movie "Transformers". This was one of her rock inspirations.

Do you know what's worth fighting for

When it's not worth dying for?

Does it take your breath away

And you feel yourself suffocating?

She has memorized this lyric for a long time. Although the main theme of the song is about the expression of anti-war stance, she can read more from the lyrics - are the beliefs you insist on really worth everything you have to sacrifice? This was the beginning of her reflection on life and the events that happened in society. This kind of questioning was something that had been missing in her growing environment, but music gave her the rebellious spirit of punk.

Si Si has not been a particularly gregarious person since adolescence, but the impactful lyrics, intense drum beats and melodies of rock music have given her a new understanding - don't care too much about the outside world's opinions, just be yourself . Whether it's "American Idiot" by Green Day or "Don't Cry" by Guns N' Roses, they all inspired her greatly.

After graduating from college, she worked alone in Shenzhen. Faced with the pressure of work and entering society for the first time, watching performances became her temporary escape from reality. No matter what conflicts and dark moments he experiences, for Sisi, rock music is still that real, strong, and vital place.

In 2018, Si Si had just finished his undergraduate thesis and went to the Taihu Midi Music Festival with a local music fan organization. The atmosphere at the scene was particularly lively. Some people were diving in their bachelor's uniforms. They were listening to Zhi Ren'er singing "Youth Chaos" and "Wish to Burn Out". While thinking that their youth seemed to be coming to an end, they couldn't help but shed tears.

At the Midi scene, you can always see a classic slogan: "Protect the girl, implement it." Nowadays, these eight words often appear on the screens of various livehouses and performance venues, and are used as the guideline for showing gentlemanly demeanor in the circle. .

Sisi doesn't quite agree with this slogan. It seems to naturally put "girls" in a weak position that must be protected by men. "I don't need your protection, I just need the most basic respect for me. If you want to protect me, it means there are bad people among you, and you need to take care of yourselves."

The rock scene has always been a very masculine place. Mosh is a common practice in the heavy metal and hardcore punk scenes. It is an interaction between music fans, including Pogo, Dead Wall, Circle Pit, etc. Fans usually form a Mosh Pit (Mosh Zone) near the stage and swing wildly with the music. bodies, or collide with each other.

Although Mosh ideally embraces everyone to enjoy the freedom and pleasure of dancing and collision, and calls for the protection of all participants, and many women also enjoy the pleasure it brings, it is inevitably still a very masculine concept. , masculine movement.

On the other hand, rock music scenes sometimes become a place for men to "hunt for beauty". Girls who like rock music are always easily equated with "letting go" by default. Sisi once had a brief affair with a man she met because of rock music. They had a good conversation at first, but later she learned through other friends that the man was married. When questioned, the response he got was: "I thought you didn't mind this." Sisi didn't understand and blocked him.

Like Sisi, VV is also a rock music fan. After returning to China from studying abroad four years ago, VV often hangs out in livehouses. In a rock music environment surrounded by men, VV often has the experience of being approached by men to strike up a conversation. She felt like she was being treated like prey and was aware of the discomfort but had no idea what was wrong.

"It seems like I don't really belong there."

Even as the organizer of the show, the situation of women will not change because of the change in roles. VV has organized many performances. Once, she held a punk music festival in Xi'an. During a dinner with the staff, a man's eyes made VV feel very uncomfortable. He kept trying to get close to VV and touch her belly, but because he was the introducer of one of the invited bands, VV could only tactfully avoid it and sit at other tables.

When he was about to finish eating, he suddenly approached VV and quickly touched her butt. VV was shocked and frightened and ran away quickly. She was surprised and angry that another boy saw the scene but reacted as if it was no big deal.

On the same night, a sponsor friend chatted with VV outside the venue near the end of the show. He mentioned that he was in a bad mood and asked VV if he could give him a hug. Out of trust in her collaborators and friends, VV felt that a comforting hug was acceptable, but the sponsor tried to forcefully kiss her after the hug ended. VV pushed the other person away in horror, but the other person said instead: "It's your honor for me to kiss you."

As an organizer, VV did not receive the respect she deserved. She felt that she was "not treated as an organizer, but as an object that could be hunted."

In 2020, a Weibo user posted online about an incident in which a woman was sexually harassed by a band's bassist. Later, someone posted a post on behalf of a friend accusing the music industry kol @grumpymusicfanbot of sexually assaulting women after the performance. As more and more women speak out online about their experiences of being sexually harassed and assaulted before and after performances, the public has gained a glimpse of the long-term unfriendly gender environment of "Rolling Circles".

The poster, the victim, and several other friends at that time created the "Girl with a Machine Gun in a Qin Bao" (hereinafter referred to as "Qin Bao"). They launched an anti-sexual assault initiative and signed online petitions. The poster of "#滚球againstsexual assault" reads their manifesto:

“Watch a show together≠YES

Drink together≠YES

Living in the same room≠YES

ONLY YES MEANS YES”

02 Girls to the Front!

While "Qin Bao" was fighting against sexual assault and accepting help for sexual harassment, he was inspired by the Riot Grrrl movement and slowly launched many Riot Grrrl activities in the country.

What is the "violent girl movement" starts with a band called Bikini Kill.

The documentary "Punk Singer" left their stories behind. At the very beginning of the documentary, Kathleen, the lead singer of Bikini Kill, was performing a spoken word poem (Spoken Word), shouting out the unfair experience of women.

I'm a girl you can't shut up. There's not a guy big enough can handle this mouth. I'm going to tell everyone what you did to me. Be strong enough to handle my mouth. I'm going to tell everyone what you did to me.)

"No one has ever listened to me speak properly in my life." Kathleen, who was eager to express herself at the time, was devoting herself to artistic practices such as writing and spoken poetry. And at a writer's salon, she was asked, why not form a band? Because everyone is more willing to go to the live band performance instead of listening to spoken poetry. As a result, she discovered that punk might be a more powerful way to express her voice.

In college, she formed the original Bikini Kill with Tobi (drummer) and Kathi (bassist). Together they founded the ragtag movement, shouting out women's voices through zines, creations and performances.

The original violent girl manifesto, published in the second issue of punk magazine founded by Bikini Kill, originally read: "We are angry at a society that tells us girls = stupid, girls = bad, girls = weak... Because I Believe with all my heart that girls have a revolutionary soul and power and will truly change the world." From here, the violent girl movement was born.

In 1991, Bikini Kill embarked on their first tour after releasing their first tape, Revolution Girl Style Now. Kathleen always wears underwear or short skirts during performances, writes "SLUT" on her belly with lipstick, and shouts "Girls to the front! Girls to the front! (Girls to the front!)". She displays anger and aggression that cannot be ignored.

During the performance, Kathleen spared no effort to emphasize the position and space of women. For the first time in rock history, she allowed women to occupy the space in the front row and kicked out those who behaved disrespectfully from the performance.

Under the leadership of Kathleen and Bikini Kill, the violent girl movement took the lead in areas such as Olympia and Washington, USA, and "Girls to the front" became an important slogan.

Like Bikini Kill, local underground female musicians and musicians express their feminist stance through composing music and producing fanzine to resist the exclusivity of male-dominated punk culture.

Bikini Kill grew up alongside third wave feminism. In 1992, they performed in the square in front of the Supreme Court to protest the Supreme Court's conservative ruling on abortion rights.

Bikini Kill have reformed and started playing venues in recent years, and many of the new generation of girl bands are still channeling the rage left by their decades-old counterparts.

The Linda Lindas, a band that has attracted much attention in recent years, is composed of Asian and Latino girls, with an average age of only 13 years old. They wore Bikini Kills T-shirts, played loudly in the library, and used punk music to fight back against stereotypes and discrimination against women and different ethnic groups.

Although the remnants of the Riot Girl movement disappeared in the late 1990s, and many Riot Girls bands began to disband, its spirit and influence still exist, including the emergence of new bands that continue the Riot Girls spirit, such as Sleater Kinney, who was once reviewed by Time Magazine For the greatest female punk band.

Riot has indirectly influenced everything from Afropunk festivals to Sista Grrl to queer bands. In 1998, Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of Bikini Kill, formed the electronic band Le Tigre to advocate LGBTQ equality.

03 “Offense is my purpose”

VV first wanted to play violent girl punk because she was inspired by Kathleen Hanna. She has watched Kathleen and Violent Punk's performance videos online countless times. Even though these videos are blurry and rough, it does not affect their infectious energy that penetrates the screen.

In May 2021, a feminist punk platter performance called "Confessions of Bad Feminism" opened at Xi'an Future Club. VV was also at the show, but this time she was no longer a music fan, but the organizer of the show and the lead singer of the participating band Sweet Twitch. The name "Confessions of a Bad Feminist" comes from Roxane Gay's book " Bad Feminist". VV wants to tell everyone that you don't have to be a good girl according to all standards.

Put on a feminist show to fight back. A few months before this performance, someone posted on the Moon group that the Bricks musician blatantly used the word "bitch" to humiliate female fans, causing the group chat to read "Welcome bitches."

Later, the band's 20th anniversary performance poster once again showed clear elements of insulting women. They held a performance at the Hangzhou Wine Club, a performance venue hosted by the band's musicians, and painted graffiti that was offensive to women. However, such behavior will not have any consequences. The wine club was still nominated for the Midi Award for Best Livehouse of the Year many times. Many punk musicians in the circle of friends even expressed support for them. VV felt very angry and blocked them. Many people decided to perform a show to criticize.

She said: "I still like punk music, but I don't want to fit into this circle anymore, and I don't want to be accepted. I want to do my own thing to fight back against them. No matter whether this fight back is useful or not, but I just want to do it." .”

VV is very enamored with the concept of "self-revolution" in the "Naples Quartet". She believes that in a patriarchal world, only through constant self-reconstruction and self-revolution can we continue to grow, so her WeChat name has always been "RevoMe".

She loves to talk and chat with the audience between performances, and never shirks her feminist stance, which makes it easy to offend many male musicians and fans.

A few days ago, Sweet Twitch was invited to perform at the Chongqing Punk Music Festival. VV was very happy during the performance. She shouted "boy bands suck" on the stage, and there were friends with "gig bags" in the audience holding up "Girls to the front" brand.

After the performance, a male punk musician who she knew before asked her: "Why are you so radical now? What kind of music do you want to make?" VV understood the meaning behind his words, and she replied: "I want to make music that can express myself Music, if I offend people, that's my purpose. Why can't I be radical?"

In a later rehearsal, the former guitarist, who has now retired from Sweet Twitch, also "reminded" VV, meaning that she said such offensive words as "boy bands suck" at the festival, how can she expect other punk festivals to invite them again? ? But VV felt that even if his words offended everyone, it should not be the reason for not being invited to his band.

"If there is tolerance and unity in the punk culture you claim to be, why do you exclude feminism?"

Whether it is to support female musicians or to take advantage of female musicians, the difference is obvious to VV.

Sweet Twitch was once invited to a performance with a theme called "Twin Ponytails and Sailor Suit". Under this theme, the organizer specially invited bands with female musicians and female vocalists, and required the musicians to wear sailor uniforms on stage. VV declined the invitation because no matter what she wore, it should be done out of her own free will rather than being reduced to a tool to satisfy the audience's sexual fantasies. This made her feel repulsed and disgusted.

At the music scene of "Confessions of Bad Feminism", there were many audiences. There were many girls in the audience, as well as fellow "gig bags". The atmosphere was warm and loving. Sweet Twitch performed Bikini Kill's famous song "Rebel Girl" with their co-starring bands Dujian, Xiao Wang, and Pizza Face. This song can be said to be an important symbol of the riot girl movement in the 1990s. It is an anthem for "rebel girls".

After the performance, the lead singers of the four bands hugged each other.

Soul sister, rebel girl

Come and be my best friend

Just like the female camaraderie expressed in this lyric, women on stage and off are closely connected.

04 Instruments with masculine qualities

The Pear Band is also a band that originated in Xi'an Future Club. (Future Club is a music space that combines a rehearsal room and a livehouse, providing growth soil for many local bands.)

When members of the Chinese zodiac sign talk about VV privately, they always say, "We are comrades in arms." Lead singer Lao Yan said that VV's brave expression and feminist performances inspired her a lot.

When he was in college in Beijing, Lao Yan had the experience of forming a band. Apart from her, the other four members are all men. She described herself as having "no sense of gender" at the time. On the way to dinner after band rehearsal, several other musicians would always stare at the passing girls and use very direct language to comment on their figure and appearance. Those words made Lao Yan feel "unspeakable". She felt uncomfortable and reminded them that they felt bad about it, but it had no effect.

This period gave her an experience that allowed her to explore communication patterns among male groups. She found that men may behave politely and respectfully to women in front of the opposite sex, but when they are in a "fraternity", they become another person.

After graduation, she returned to Xi'an to develop, and the original band members naturally went their separate ways. In a group chat for a band, she asked without hope if she had any friends in Xi'an who wanted to play in a band, but only one person responded to her. This person later became Lao Yan's girlfriend, who was also born in the year of Pear. bassist.

They found the drummer through a friend's introduction. Since the drummer was also a lesbian, Lao Yan thought it would be better to form a queer band together. The English name of pear is "Rats & Pears". Lao Yan regards the patriarchal society and system as the image of "rat", while "pear" represents the symbolic expression of women.

They wrote in the band introduction: "Your father is a rat, and your mother is a pear. One-dimensionality turns into a rustling spell in the landscape world, compressing itself into a plane rectangular coordinate. When you try to mark, cast a fishing net: don't move, we It’s you who’s caught.”

There was no suitable person for the position of guitarist until Sixteen came over to talk to them after a performance and filled the vacancy. Sixteen is a man with long hair and doesn't have much masculinity about him. When performing, he puts on makeup and wears nice dresses. But when talking about him wearing a skirt, Lao Yan could feel the contempt of many "people in the circle", and they would always show a subtle expression of disdain.

Recently Shiliu had to quit the band due to personal reasons, and Suli started looking for a lead guitarist again. In the process of recruiting new guitarists, Lao Yan gradually discovered that as long as the position of guitarist, an eye-catching instrument, is held by a man, everyone will take it for granted that he composed all the band's songs. But in fact, the creation of Zoli is led by Lao Yan and the bassist.

Of course it would be a good choice if you can find girls, but it is actually not easy to form an all-female band. It is even difficult in Beijing, let alone in the city of Xi'an.

Among the three major pieces of rock music, many musical instruments have been attached with masculine qualities since their birth, as if this instrument should naturally be played by men.

For example, the electric guitar is regarded by many music and cultural researchers as an extension of the male sexual organ. It always needs to show strong aggression and aggressiveness in rock music. This is a trait that men are encouraged to display as they grow up, while women are taught to stay away from conflict and offense. Therefore, the electric guitar is almost monopolized by men. It is rare to see a band with a girl playing the lead guitar, and few girls have the confidence to play the electric guitar well.

This time, Lao Yan decided not to look for a male guitarist. Although it was a lucky thing to meet Shiliu, even if there are only three girls, it is not necessarily impossible. Although Lao Yan didn't have much confidence in playing the electric guitar in the past, and it would be more difficult to play and sing at the same time, she wanted to try to practice this time. This was her inner insistence on breaking this stereotype.

Drums are no exception. In traditional knowledge, everyone always thinks that drumming is a physical activity. For example, in music like heavy metal, double-tapping requires hitting very high, and it cannot be completed without a certain amount of physical strength. But rather than believing that musical instruments "pick people", perhaps it is more "punk" to believe that people actively choose musical instruments.

When she was in high school, Sisi always wanted to learn to play drums, but she didn't have the chance to try because of her studies. After I graduated from college and came to Shenzhen, there happened to be a drum teaching institution right next to my home, so I started playing drums from then on.

Sisi, who came to Shenzhen, experienced a period of depression, and playing drums gave her an opportunity to vent. Immersed in the rhythm of percussion, Sisi no longer needs to think about work or relationships, and releases his emotions while playing drums.

More and more girls are becoming drummers. For example, the drummers of Caodong and Constantine’s Changing Ball are all girls. Si Si believes that when more and more women choose an instrument that is said to be inconsistent with their gender temperament, they are rebelling against the gender label that society has assigned to them.

05 Music from a female perspective

After working with some musicians, VV found that female musicians are often more creative than male musicians, although they are always too modest. Male musicians rely on their own skills or theories and dare to express their own ideas and opinions. Female musicians often bury their talents because they don't dare to stand up, but they are often better at creating than anyone imagines.

VV mentioned Xiao Wang Band, which is an all-female band in Beijing. “If you listen to Xiao Wang’s songs, you will realize that no male musician would create such a thing.” Xiao Wang released a new album "Kacha Kacha" last year. Their music is just like the album title, like an onomatopoeia that you can't help but be infected by when you read it. It uses arrangements that transcend rules and a roaring nuclear voice, full of power. The harmonies and the fierce and sharp lyrics create chaos, complexity and noise vigorously and forcefully.

Just like writing, women's narratives have always been ignored and considered unimportant, but VV believes that women's experience naturally equips us with a special gender perspective - even though it may not have been mainstream before Accept it, but this female perspective is slowly emerging and growing. The temperament and content of this kind of music are definitely something that male musicians cannot achieve.

In the lyrics of many classic rock songs, elements of misogyny are unavoidable. The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb" condescendingly writes about how women are "in control like a Siamese cat." There are countless such examples. Whether it is the Beatles or Bob Dylan, those names that are resounding throughout the history of music tend to intentionally or unintentionally use women as muses and objects in their creations.

Under my thumb

under my control

A Siamese cat of a girl

a girl like a siamese cat

Under my thumb

under my control

She's the sweetest, hmmm, pet in the world

She is the sweetest pet in the world

——"Under My Thumb" The Rolling Stones

Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl

Than to be with another man

I'd rather see you die than see you with another man, little girl

You better keep your head, little girl

Or I won't know where I am

You better calm down, little girl, or I don't know where I'd be

You better run for your life if you can, little girl

Hide your head in the sand little girl

You'd better run for your life now, little girl. Bury your head in the sand and don't come out to see anyone, little girl.

Catch you with another man

That's the end, little girl

I'll catch you red-handed with another man, and that's what will happen to you, little girl.

——"Run for Your Life" The Beatles

VV wrote the song "Crazy Woman" after the Xi'an subway incident. The smooth bass rhythm, combined with the strong drum beat, heralds the start of a passionate performance. After the noise of the guitar enters, VV's singing is like a word-for-word shouting, reminiscent of Kathleen Hanna. Later, more and more incidents of gender-based violence appeared, and this song no longer only represented a single incident, but a response to all incidents of gender-based violence.

Just like the song says, "I am the crazy woman / if that's what you call me / I am the crazy woman / if you wanna fight me", it's time for women who have been stigmatized as "crazy women" for a long time to take action Take autonomy back to the "crazy" and really fight back.

The sameness and hypocritical resistance in the current punk culture is something VV hates. Many slogans calling for freedom and equality are just flag-like things and do not really hit anything. Therefore, those so-called resistances seem to be as weak and boring as fists hitting cotton. Of course, they have never kept up with feminism. Development - If punk is a struggle against inequality, then why have women's rights, as an important part of the struggle, never been mentioned?

"Their rebellion has not really been implemented in concrete life, and their unity and tolerance are just brotherhood-like self-impressions." However, more and more female creators, in the blood and tears they have personally experienced and felt, Above, the strength and anger are written clearly on the back of the paper.

After watching "Fang Siqi's First Love Paradise", Lao Yan felt very desolate. Thinking that the perpetrators were still at large in reality, she felt even more angry, so she wrote the lyrics of "Letter from the Raven":

Control her, destroy her and then forget her

The rising incense escapes into the cave

Swallow her, chew her and spit on her

Intertwined on the water in the dark night

Falling into the garbage heap of paradise next to your and my face

The dripping dustpan dances with the rusty heart

Not long ago, Suli just released the MV for "Letter from the Raven". They conceived the script themselves and asked the director to help modify it. They spent their weekends shooting from morning to night to complete the MV at a very low cost.

When the song begins, the mouth organ plays and lyrics with various images of ruin are sung, creating a desolate, dark and sad atmosphere. In one of the scenes, the blindfolded actress was sitting on a stool, and her white skirt was smeared with red paint by the male actor. Lao Yan was working as a "lighting assistant" behind the scenes, and he couldn't help but laugh. Goosebumps.

They bought rice paper and writing brushes from the stationery store downstairs, wrote down sentences from "Fang Siqi's First Love Paradise", then hung the paper on a tree, and the actress tore it into pieces. At the end of the MV, the white dress was burned and the girl picked up the microphone.

In the past, Lao Yan also did some internships and worked in a music company, but she found that she still prefers to create, because "it can bring you as much happiness as it brings you pain." . When you can't write anything, you may doubt yourself very much, but occasionally when inspiration strikes, the pleasure brought by creation is irreplaceable to Lao Yan.

"I always think that if I hadn't played in a band when I was the youngest and healthiest, I would have regretted it when I was about to die in my 70s or 80s. I can't imagine anything else than this. It attracts me even more and makes me want to do it no matter what.”

Sisi got a tattoo of a girl named Nezha playing drums on her arm. Because Nezha is the most rebellious character in Chinese culture, she used this tattoo to remind herself that she would never accept it.

Author | Lulu

Editor | Sharon

Design | Sam

Picture｜From interviewee