American Hardcore And Gender

Finally saw American Hardcore last night; very interesting film and sentiments expressed. A lot of the commentary about living in California during the Reagan administration I found to be an accurate reflection of what I was experiencing as a very young kid living in California during that time. There was absolutely nothing mellow about this place - there were underlying tensions and frustrations - a latent hostility that at the time I didn't really have a vocabulary to express.

At that time, musically speaking, I was studying classical form and likely just starting to get into jazz; I was vaguely aware of punk rock and hardcore but they weren't music that I got into at all.

When the question of where women showed up in hardcore the answer was 'keeing the books' and 'behind the cameras'. I could have guessed this and it made me very sad.

One of the 2 women interviewed who actually played music, Kimm Gardner,said something along the lines of not really ever being aware that she was a woman - this is very much how I felt growing up studying and playing jazz. I never considered my gender as part of the equation. That said, I definitely felt somewhat isolated from the people that were then my peers but I didn't ascribe those feelings to the fact that I was female at least not until I got to be a bit older and the idea of sexism was introduced to me.

Lately I've been giving gender and sexual orientation a lot of thought; I consider myself to be relatively heterosexual and certainly female. That said, I do not relate to typically heterosexual American lifestyle and the gender role that straight women take on.

On the flip side I never related to the riotgrrl movement or the whole era of 'women in rock' - it just seemed wrong to me that gender was a part of the equation of the expression of people. I think I simply see myself as a creative person - period.

Not fitting into a category of subculture has often left me feeling really isolated - there have been times in my life when I have yearned for the feelings of belonging that I imagine folks who are firmly planted in one group or another feel. I imagine everyone does.