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.