a woman's "place" in the music business

I have considered myself a big music fan since I was 12, and I got my first juvenile favorite band. It was a freeing sort of counterculture for me, as back in those days the mainstream genre was Rap and Hip-hop and the like, and my preference was for Rock. You know, "Alternative" Rock. Adolescents usually gravitate to one of two extremes: going to great lengths to fit in, or going to similar lengths to stand out.

I definitely belonged to the second camp.

Thankfully, I am now over myself and no longer think of myself as a Tortured Special Snowflake. But I am still a huge music fan. My taste in music defined me once I went to my first concert when I was 14, until I went to college and got a life. It was a form of escapism, for those horrible high school days. I could throw myself into this amazing thing that moved me, and idolize these dudes who were like heroes to me, and then I could go see them play in person, and even meet them! Fancy that.

That was all well and good. But then my admiration naturally evolved into idolatry, and I wanted to be like them. And that's when I began to feel pretty alienated. Sure, it's fine for a girl to like music. It might even be okay for her to think about it critically. But for her to want to make it? And earn that same respect? Much more difficult to fathom.

If what you mean by "a cold one" is "my cold fist in your face," then sure...

I usually describe the experience of taking my first class in Women's Studies as having blinders removed. It was like gaining peripheral vision that I didn't know I was missing; I started noticing all these things in my day-to-day life that really, really weren't right. It gets pretty exhausting, but anger is a motivator. As evidenced by the fact that I started this blog.

However, de-blinder-ing aside, one thing I didn't need feminism to notice was the blatant stupidity of beer commercials. My brother Julian loves to make fun of the fact that they always advertise how cold their beer is... but isn't how cold beer is up to the purchaser of said beer? Also, some of these beer companies peddle glorified mood rings in the form of color-changing cans that indicate coldness. Julian points out that you could just as easily touch the can, and get a much less black-or-white answer to how cold your damn beer is.