Before They Fizzled Out

If one more person says to me,

That of course they believe in equality,

But feminism, it’s just not for me.

I will try, hard as I might,

But I just can’t make them understand

That I will fight for a man’s right,

Just as much as I will fight for mine.

So I’ve provided a list,

An FAQ for feminists..

DO YOU HATE MEN?

No of course not.

YOU A LESBIAN?

It’s not relevant.

YOU GONNA BURN A BRA?

No, and we never did.

BUT YOU HATE HOUSEWIVES?

No, we’re happy if housewives are happy.

So if one more person says to me,

That of course they believe in equality,

But feminism, it’s just not for me.

I will try, hard as I might,

To make you try and understand,

That’s there’s nothing aggressive

In our plans.

http://emilyheathmusic.com/home.cfm

“Before the Common Era. People use that now instead of B.C. and A.D. because those are Christian terms. See, when they realized the potential to make money with war, they became very interested in making sure their money and their property stayed in their own family line, so it became necessary to strictly control women’s sexuality in a way it never had been before. You can’t have a patriarchy if you don’t know who the daddies are, and there were no DNA tests in those days, so women became virtual prisoners, and women and children were considered property.”

“Like what happens with the Taliban or some other theocracy takes over in the Middle East…”

“Right – it’s still going on. The Middle East is more blatant about it, but the same dynamic can be found all through Western Culture. Americans don’t make women wear burkas, but they consider women who enjoy sex to be whores, women are still beaten and raped with very little help or protection from authorities, women are routinely paid less than men for the same work, we’ve never had a female president even though women are 54% of the population. Did you know that since women have been given fair access to college education they are the majority in schools now and making the top grades? Whenever they’re given a fair shot, they out do men in almost any field except the ones that favor brute strength. There’s nothing inferior about women – that was always lies used to justify treating women as chattel. Look at any culture – who works the fields, prepares the food, cares for the children – the world is built on the backs of women.”

“My Gran always said that a big job needed 3 good men or one woman.”

“Exactly.”

“If women are the majority, why don’t we run things?”

“Good question. It’s because we’re taught to compete with each other rather than work together. If we ever get together, we’ll take over, so anything that brings us together is denigrated. Feminism is just basic fairness, but if you use the word you start hearing slurs about dykes or man-hating or not shaving your legs – anything they think will scare a woman away from such things for fear of alienating their husbands or lovers or sons or brothers. They use the media to keep women obsessed with things that don’t matter – weight, fashion, how you smell, how you look. You don’t see them putting young boys in bathing suits and parading them around a stage grading them, do you?”

“I never thought about that. It’s very rare to see a boy in a pageant, isn’t it?”

“Right – it’s hard to have a Sisterhood if you’re constantly comparing yourself to the woman next to you.”

-Morgaine Swann from Late

(Yes I’m reading smutty fanfiction, but if you love Eric and Sookie you’ll know that neither the book or the TV show is going the way we want it to. I WANT THEM HAPPY! Haha).

I thought I’d tackle the rather hard-shitting feminist topic of why I can’t buy Avengers pajamas or pants.

I enjoyed Iron Man, Captain America and Thor as much as everyone else on Tumblr, although I may post less pictures of Tom Hiddleston’s face than is required to become a fully fledged member of the Avengers fandom, I’ve certainly got the Loki love. I was super-excited to see the Avengers, and not just because I loved the previous films, I am also a life-long fan of Joss Whedon, and I find it impossible to think that he can do any wrong. (APART FROM WHEN HE KILLED OFF ANYA AND POKED XANDER’S EYE OUT. WHYYYYYYYYY?!)

Anyway, I work in a clothes shop, and around the time the Avengers came out, we started selling Avengers themed pants and Superman pajamas in the men’s section, and this made me think that I’d quite like some Avengers pajamas and pants. We didn’t have any in the girl’s section at work, but we did sell The Only Way is Essex pants, so that’s nice isn’t it?

I wasn’t really surprised we didn’t sell any at work, but I felt sure that I’d be able to get some online… OH, AND I DID. Here’s a little preview of them; 

Something strikes me as odd about these, it’s almost like the only way women can buy Avengers pajamas is if they sexualize themselves and the Avengers in the process. Personally, I’m a fan of the flannel pajama, so these really don’t ring my bells. I particularly like how the waist on all three pajamas is so narrow they have to add a background to the pajama, just to accentuate the tininess of the waist. Always nice to have your self-esteem kicked just before bed. As Christina Flores writes, you can’t help but feel like these were made with men in mind, like the only reason women would want Avengers pajamas is to impress a partner, cus we all know the Hulk is sexy. 

You only have to look through Tumblr to see that girls are among some of the biggest Avengers fans. It just seems strange that Marvel would cut off 50% of their market because of some warped sexism. Marvel, WAKE UP. Girls bloody love superheroes and comics, and can we please let the world know that in our choice of underwear and pajamas please? But in a way that is comfortable and non-‘sexy’, give me some Avengers flannel pajamas and full brief pants, and I’ll love you forever.

I really would like this to change, I want to see the Hulk popping up in the girl’s section of clothes more often, I want more of a range! And give the men some The Only Way is Essex pants incase they want some, not all men like the Avengers and not all women like The Only Way is Essex, and I’d like to see that reflected in clothing stores. I know I’m not a minority in this, and I’d like shops online and off to stop making me feel like one. 

Christina Flores also writes a bit about this.

FAQ For Feminists.-Emily Heath 

If one more person says to me,

That of course they believe in equality,

But feminism, it’s just not for me.

I will try, hard as I might,

But I just can’t make them understand

That I will fight for a man’s right,

Just as much as I will fight for mine.

So I’ve provided a list,

An FAQ for feminists..

DO YOU HATE MEN?

No of course not.

YOU A LESBIAN?

It’s not relevant.

YOU GONNA BURN A BRA?

No, and we never did.

BUT YOU HATE HOUSEWIVES?

No, we’re happy if housewives are happy.

So if one more person says to me,

That of course they believe in equality,

But feminism, it’s just not for me.

I will try, hard as I might,

To make you try and understand,

That’s there’s nothing aggressive

In our plans.

http://emilyheathmusic.com/home.cfm 

Am I the only one who finds it impossible to not do a feminist critique of every film you ever watch? 

I’m currently writing an essay on sexism in comedy, and as this is an issue very dear to me, I want to make it as good as it can be. I’ve printed off quite a few articles and got a few books out, but if you have any articles or anything that you think would be good, please let me know! 

I’ve managed to quote Josie Long 90 words in, which I’m very pleased about! 

Etsy post!

There’s always been quite a fierce vein of gender politics running through the band, how important is that to you?

It’s very, very important to us. It’s a major driving force within the band. We always identify ourselves a punk band because of that liberal minded attitude that punk brought. When bands start becoming more popular you have to become aware because I still see a lot of bands that are very much about the whole…you know…casual sexism filtering through. And it’s not only tolerated, which is bad enough, it’s laughed off – which is worse. Like if you have a problem with it, then it’s you that’s uptight, it’s your problem. The idea that you can just laugh off a sexist comment is something I do not believe in, it perpetuates it so much and it still goes on because people don’t want to seem uptight just by having an opinion on it. But when you see it all the time, I’m not going to not mention it, and then through mentioning it you get given shit for it. It’s so stupid and I’m surprised people can actually give people shit for having good values and not feel weird about it.

When we started, a lot of the bands we were influenced by were the ‘Riot Grrrl’ bands, and that’s left a huge mark on us, and it’s just got to be about completely believing in equality. I hate the fact that sexism is still so rife, and working in this industry it is shoved in my face every single day. Fortunately, there’s a lot of good people working at the opposite end of that but as you go into the more mainstream realm it’s just still so old fashioned and backward thinking, and we always take pride in trying to identify against that. I got really wound up the other day when I read a review of one of our gigs that described the audience as massively male orientated, and I just felt “I see our crowd every night, there are only 3 people who see our crowd every night, and that is not the case”. It’s always been very mixed, always is, always has been. And why would a journalist want to project that image?

I think a lot of lazy journalists can see a situation where a band are energetic and passionate onstage and confuse that with laddism and, in some cases, hooliganism

Oh yeah, exactly, and that is what’s ridiculous. Whatever it is you do, if you have dedication, then you do play fierce, and you do play with passion. That isn’t aggressive, it’s just being passionate. And that resonates across the board does passion. The same thing happened with punk, ending up attracting a crowd that was more…destructive…just because it was very passionate and certain people responded aggressively. But you can’t do anything about that. As you get played on the radio more and start getting more mainstream exposure it’s something that you do end up soaking up, you end up soaking up fans that you might not necessarily agree with. But as long as you can work with that and switch them onto other things.

I suppose it’s better that they’re at a Cribs gig than somewhere that enforces those kind of attitudes.

Totally, and with us it’s just always been passion and not aggression. It’s purely down to the fact that we care about what it is that we’re doing. Going back to what you were saying, gender politics has always been our guiding force and is what we are most aware of and what we most care about.

A lot of other bands don’t do it, and I imagine through Kate (Kate Nash) you’ve gained a heightened awareness of females in the music industry

Certainly, there are those kinds of attitudes and she was really aware of it and very good at addressing it, I mean it for granted sometimes but when it’s happening to someone who, you know, you care about…it just re-enforced all my views about it being rife within the industry. It’s just tolerated, and it’s the norm, and a lot of bands adhere to that casual sexism, with the whole laddism thing. Personally, it’s not like it’s all we talk about but it’s just there aren’t bands in the mainstream that are actually addressing it and if you have any kind of social conscious at all you really have to address it. We just want to represent ourselves and make sure people know what we’re about.