SeekBliss said:
Emo bands are probably 95% male, right? Writing songs about how terrible their relationships are, and, from a male perspective, blaming everything on women. I looked it up, Jessica Hopper wrote an article on it. She said women were being demonized. "Hopper believed that the sexism was unique to the new version of emo, as "indie emo" era bands such as Sunny Day Real Estate seemed to provide depth to the female characters portrayed in their songs."

But at the same time, is it all that shocking? Rock has always been, or really, tried to be an all-boys club, and you can't argue that rock isn't exactly a feministic movement. And even before, really, throughout time you can see a history of misogyny to Adam and Eve, if you want. I think calling it a 'demonization' is a bit dramatic, however. Not to try to justify it, by any means, but then, both misogynists and extreme feminists both get on my nerves. I don't see any evidence of female inferiority, so by railing against it, from my point of view, is almost as bad as admitting it exists, no?

So, by saying "Rock has always been, or really, tried to be an all-boys club, and you can't argue that rock isn't exactly a feministic movement. " (which I'm pretty sure you meant to say "you can't argue that there is a great deal of feminism in rock."), it's really just ignoring the problem because it's too big to comprehend. Just because 95% of rock musicians are male, and a great portion of them have a problem with women, does not in ANY WAY justify the music that they write. Just because misogyny is there, and has been around since "Adam and Eve" is merely an explanation and not an excuse.

Also to say "I don't see any evidence of female inferiority, so by railing against it, from my point of view, is almost as bad as admitting it exists, no?" So just because you haven't noticed something somehow deems it unworthy of attention? Also I don't even remotely see how "admitting it exists" is anywhere close to "railing against it" since the people who are doing the "railing" are the same ones who are actually pointing out its existance since the bands themselves would never admit to any of this.

You mentioned Jessica Hopper, and while I haven't read the specific article you're referring to, she's quoted a great deal in the book Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo by Andy Greenwald. It's an excellent, well-written book, I highly recommend checking it out because it gives a thoughtful, in-depth examination of something that has become an ambiguous if overwhelming cultural phenomenon. At any rate, he has a chapter about the treatment of women in emo, and while I didn't include any of the specific lyrical examples, the following gives you an idea of the argument he and Jessica Hopper try to make:

"'I actually think emo today is more misogynist and macho than rap-metal or hip-hop,' says Jessica Hopper. 'Ever since it was stripped of its politics, it keeps women on a pedestal or on our backs. It relegates us to the role of muse or heartbreaker, an object of either misery or desire. Emo just builds a cathedral of man pain and then celebrates its validation.' . . . This sort of emo with its female phobia celebrates a perpetual adolescence . . .

The singers may pretend to be hanging themselves out to dry by copping to crying and being sad at night, but in the heightened emo environment, where broken hearts are badges of honor, it's a hollow boast. Their scars are a sign of pride--you're the one onstage bragging about how upset you are--but there's no attempt at actual conversation or relationship building.

Some emo bands take cues from the darker end of hardcore and make songs that can be heard as virulently anti-women, couching disturbing physcially violent sentiments in sensitive, poppy clothing.

The most common treatment of women is a more insidious type of sexism, an immature version of women that's all-too-appealing to young people years away from ahving their first serious relationship . . . From imagery to lyrics, women are powerless victims--even when they've been proactive and ended a relationship, they're perpetually denied the last word.

'This sort of stuff is an emotional outlet with no sense of balance or responsibility, says Jessica Hopper. 'It's incredibly self-indulgent. There's no culpability and no personality. Women are just things that do things. Emo in 2002 is just a passive-aggressive rewirte of the Rolling Stones Under My Thumb . . . Despite emo's purported sensitivity, many of the old gender fault lines remain.'"

I really do recommend you check out the book because the lyrical examples help to clarify this quite a bit.

And yes, while misogyny is not something invented by emo by any stretch of the imagination, what makes it unique here is how it is manifested and also the fact that the fanbase for emo is at time 50% or more female, which makes this treatment that much more unsettling.

Oh and in case you were wondering I fucking love emo. Dashboard Confessional, Something Corporate, Jimmy Eat World, Brand New, and Alkaline Trio (less emo, but the argument could apply) are some of my favorite bands in the world. This is the type of thing I do out of love.

Fanglorious

Orlando, FL

January 2006

JUL 23, 2006 09:55 PM

I tend to avoid emo music.

That being said, the makeup. No, not just the makeup---the fact that girls swoon over them dressing up like women. And singing like women. And for all intents and purposes, being women.

MNProgRock

I'm lost

October 2003

JUL 23, 2006 10:53 PM

the screaming..most of those bands cannot do cookie-monster vocals. They suck, their music sucks..punk rock is dead..has been.

And what also really is lame is when some bands have some cool ideas in their music, but they have to incorporate the vomit-vocals. It frequently makes something that could be great, only good or tolerable..or in some cases un-listenable.

Kyle

SonOfAPunk

Maple Ridge, BC

January 2006

JUL 23, 2006 11:08 PM

Hope is emo.

To me, the most hated emo-cliche...

Anything you are in this shitty fucking town, is emo. If you do NOT dress in Sean Jean and G-Unit apparel you get called emo. I'm not even fucking joking. I could be wearing a suit, and because I'm not wearing a "baller cap" with it, tilted north-east, I would get called emo. I roll with the "punk" crowd, when in reality we're just a bunch of fuck-ups who look alike and listen to the same shit (hehe, what's the difference, eh?), but mohawks and liberty spikes are apparently "emo". I don't get it.

Anything that's not rap is emo here. It's fuckin' hilarious.

Always worth a laugh.

I guess that's just some regional hate, and less of a "hated emo cliche".

But in reality, emotional-rock, as it were, ain't really my shit. I'm actually the opposite. Lot's of upstrokes and rollin'-rollin' bass-lines. Throw in a little reggae stylie, and you have it, my friends, the most cheery music on Earth: Ska.

SonOfAPunk

Maple Ridge, BC

January 2006

JUL 23, 2006 11:11 PM

Perdita said:
Stuff.

Excellent post.

But honestly, there's books on the emo subculture already?

Is this thing one of a kind, or is it one of several?

The closest thing I've seen on bookshelves is "My Daughter Is Wearing Black, Hath The Devil Taken Her?"

Hehehehe.

SeekBliss

Richmond, VA

March 2006

JUL 24, 2006 12:03 AM

You misunderstand. Well, maybe I mispoke. Either way, yes, I'm pointing out that rock is and has been misogynistic for, well, since it's inception, to varying degrees. (I'm not ignoring it, and I'm not trying to justify it through ignorance, nor do I feel the MUSIC itself needs any justification. More on this near the end, this is just an edit.) But as Hopper pointed out, earlier emo bands are not (and some rock bands), because their female characters are more fleshed out and balanced and not simply scapegoats.

Next, I don't think music written by men about relationships with women (even if it's portrays a negative picture), needs to have any justification. Emotions and relationships are great topics for songs, no one should not write a song about a breakup just because they don't want to insult anyone. The problem isn't the song or the lyrics, it's simply inherent in the fact that yes, 95% of the aforementioned rock musicians are men. So their songs are often about women, often about relationships, often about breakups. But what about all the love songs written by men to or about women? I mean, I don't say that rock is sexist towards men because there are no (or very few) love songs written by women to men. It's just an inbalance in numbers. I don't think the music itself has anything at all to do with it.

It's a more widesweeping social problem, where the end result is the sexism present in rock, so music often gets blamed for it. But if society accepted and encouraged female rock players more, then their numbers might be higher and the songs may be more balanced. My guitar teacher of six years is a woman, she plays rock and a lot of blues, though she did a shredding rock phase, and she's related to me tons of stories about sexism present in the music industry (one night her lead singer got punched in the face just for having a girl play guitar in his band, like a metal band). But I wouldn't blame any one genre of music, rock or emo, or even the industry itself. The music industry is an industry, and it does what makes money. Society is the core of the problem. The music industry does what people want. Or sometimes, I suppose, tells people what they want, sadly, the motto "sex sells", sums it up nicely.

I read an interview with Immi Heap which is kind of relevant. If you don't know who she is, she's the singer of the duo Frou Frou and has two solo albums, all three in the trip/hop genre. Anyways, on her solo albums she does everything herself. Almost all the instruments, the songwriting the, singing, the recording, the mixing, etc... From start to finish. She even mortgaged her London flat just to finance her last CD. Anyways, besides her music being excellent, my point is she does everything. But she relates this story of her being in a cab and mentioning to the driver that she was in a band, and he simply assumed she was the singer, and nothing else.

Obviously, she was kind of peeved by this. But people expect female musicians mainly in that one form. Female singer, who more often than not, dances around half-naked, not the female guitarist, or female bassist, or drummer. Not saying that they don't exist, though...I almost tried to validate myself by adding, 'or that they are any less proficient than their male counterparts', but why should I have to say that? Which is what annoyed me into pointing out earlier about 'railing' and 'admitting' or whatnot.

Also to say "I don't see any evidence of female inferiority, so by railing against it, from my point of view, is almost as bad as admitting it exists, no?" So just because you haven't noticed something somehow deems it unworthy of attention? Also I don't even remotely see how "admitting it exists" is anywhere close to "railing against it" since the people who are doing the "railing" are the same ones who are actually pointing out its existance since the bands themselves would never admit to any of this.

I mean, of course I'm aware of it, but what I meant that, yes, honestly in my day to day life, I don't give either being sexist or feminist a second thought. Girls are girls and guys are guys and people are people, you know? It's not until I'm confronted by either a sexist or a feminist telling me one thing or the other that I really give it any thought. You could call it ignorance, but really isn't that what this is all about? Wouldn't it be great if everyone was totally ignorant of it? Isn't that the long term goal? Really, in my/your generation, I think sexism is getting less and less. Maybe I'm naively optimistic, and maybe my experience has just been limited to good things and such, but really I like to think (and do think) that the majority of people my age are not sexist at all. So when I see feminists and when I see sexists, it's just bringing up an issue that I don't think about. It's like two extremes fighting over a middle, that, if left alone, wouldn't care at all (which is how it should be).

Maybe I should think about it more often and maybe I should be fighting for women's rights, and while I'm not sexist, I still don't like being reminded that I shouldn't be something I'm not, and as of now, have no intention of telling other people that. However, when I'm encountered with a sexist person, and I have been in the past, I will argue with them.

The singers may pretend to be hanging themselves out to dry by copping to crying and being sad at night, but in the heightened emo environment, where broken hearts are badges of honor, it's a hollow boast.

However, this problem with Emo relates to more than just misogyny, and actually speaks more to the detriment and the quality of the singers/songwriters than the women they write about, in my opinion.

And actually, I hate Emo overall anyways, I'm more Indie. I'll check out the book though.

SeekBliss

Richmond, VA

March 2006

JUL 24, 2006 12:44 AM

Edit time expired, so stick this in there somewhere:

Also, on a wider subject, how much sexism is left, how much racism is left? I'm sure there's plenty, but as a whole, in the past several decades, aren't we moving in the right direction? We've got work to do, but what about everything that has changed? Not to say that's enough and we should slow down or stop or something like that - it may take decades more to fade fully, and it may be present forever in some form or another, but then, when does prejudice simply fade into 'just being different' and 'group differentiation'?.

Also, how much of any sort of prejudice now is self-imposed? To change it up, sure, there's racism, more in some places than in others, but look at, I guess, the rap subculture as opposed to emo. Hasn't it in many ways simply embraced many stereotypes that black people say they fight against? Don't many exemplify and even embrace given stereotypes to some extent, simply because, there is a glimmer of truth? Is it their (and our) fault for embracing it, or are they (we) victims of social expectations? Now, obviously a stereotype is just a stereotype, but it's only a sore issue or perhaps funny because there is some truth in it. Just like a joke.

Targeting only, I suppose, media and celebrities here - you see rappers purposefully putting themselves into their own stereotypes, and back to sexism, you see supermodels happily posing for magazines, and people in general trying to look like they think they should. Now how much of this is society's fault (making impressionable girls think they have to be skinny or have large breasts, and perhaps, while not exactly being victimized, young boys to expect those things, etc...there's a problem of course), and how much is, as I said, self-imposed by members of the same group, often for the sake of being 'cool' or hot, or sexy or desireable, which is again a social problem?

Too much of the blame game, really, at some point, I think. It's like ADD or any other medical 'fad' problem. It's a problem, but now it's just stupid. Yeah, some people actually have it. Even more people just want to avoid responsibility or have an excuse for why they haven't done something or can't do something. There was a Colbert show episode about sleep-eating and he says something like, 'God bless doctors and pharmaceutical companies - without them we could never have found the cure for leg twitches while sleeping.' (Subtext reads: Or discovered it.)

There's problems that need solutions and there's problems that aren't recognized as problems and thus haven't got solutions and then there's problems that aren't problems that have gotten solutions, and we have way too many of the third. Like that deal with children in schools - some problem with using red ink to grade papers - that it's demoralizing to the children and it harms them psychologically.

Finally, I suppose that a majority of sexism, of the passive kind, goes under the radar because, well, of itself. How am I supposed to fight against something I can't see? If suppose, I've been raised with certain expectations that women should be excessively skinny and the girls in my age demographic are victims of marketing and advertising and myself perhaps, to be that skinny. While I understand this and other concerns, I guarantee there are many out there that I've left unaddressed and am totally unaware of...

I'm confused as to exactly how to fight this, and also, if it's a prejudice that I can't define, why I should believe blindly someone telling me, first of all, that it exists, and second of all, what I should be doing about it.

There's such a fine line between activism and fanaticism, to either extreme, and then again, a fine line between normalacy (the goal) and apathy.

I've gotten off topic, and I'm not trying to compare the original topic to anything I just brought up, and I've also probably contradicted myself on several occasions. But we can discuss further later, if need be.

spamtwo

United Kingdom

April 2006

JUL 24, 2006 05:00 AM

all the moaning and complaining on here sounds like an emo song

The_New_Scum

United Kingdom

March 2006

JUL 24, 2006 05:02 AM

spamtwo said:
all the moaning and complaining on here sounds like an emo song

Nah, a lot of emo songs...especially the more metal-based ones tend to have at least tolerable backing tracks. This thread is more like a bad emo poem.

WhiteLightRiver

Dallas, TX

July 2006

JUL 24, 2006 05:04 AM

Holy shit, kudos to SeekBliss and Perdita for turning this into the emo graduate-level dissertation thread! :p

I was just looking for some fun emo-poking, but I mean hey - now I know who to ask when I need to get my next paper written!

Seriously, good ideas, good thought, well-constructed arguments. Long ass posts, but substantial. Represent.

Nevaar

Vincentown, NJ

December 2003

JUL 24, 2006 05:48 AM

Lout_Rampage said:
Am I wrong, or did "emo" mean something completely different when I was a teenager? The term has been around for at least ten or twelve years. The bands we now call "emo" are a fairly recent development, and nothing at all like the ones from back then. Am I the only one that's noticed this?
Shit, now I'm going to be pondering the whys and wherefores of this all day.

"Sorry I forgot to solder those resistors to the breadboard. I was decoding the mystery that is emo..."

my emo days consisted of Saves the Day, The Get Up KIds, New Found Glory, ect... they all suck now. NFG makes me ill. i still see the same scene kids at the show i go to now but its more of this Saddle Creek kind of stuff. Bright eyes is super whiny so are they emo? Its more like folk now or country (the real cash/williams kind). it just got confusing for me. not really a lifestyle anymore, more like just the music i listen too and i feel shitty about the world.

legman

Portland, OR

February 2006

JUL 24, 2006 07:38 AM

I don't think I've actually ever heard "emo" music.