Betrayed by Rock and Roll

I feel betrayed by rock and roll. I know I'm not the first woman to have this complaint. I like to go to Spearhead shows, G. Love, Greg Brown and Ani DiFranco concerts where the fans are basically hippies and the artists make a point of singing at least some songs about social concerns. Rock n' roll fans, on the other hand, tend to be dirtbags. And I mean that lovingly; I wouldn't mind being a dirtbag. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks (albeit in a swanky suburb) and I can roll with dirtbags. I've even fantasized about wearing a tube top and drinking canned beer in a trailer. It's all good if you can refrain from gender analysis, also known as the feminist's curse. I also need to remind you that some rock 'n roll is overtly sexist and racist in content (see the Rolling Stones "brown sugar" or the Beatles "run for your life"--and I love the Stones and the Beatles, so I guess I was betrayed a long time ago, right from the outset). The rock 'n roll concert I went to last night was attended by an audience made up primarily of men. Truly, it was about 90 percent men. Maybe this is because women instinctually know that rock n' roll has betrayed us. I don't know for sure the explanation for this huge gender gap, but I would have hated to be a single woman in that crowd, or a lesbian. Not out of fear to my physical being, but because being with a man validated me and lent me credibility; let me in to the club by association. While I don't have male privilege, I have white, heterosexual privilege. When I started asking people around me why the only women on the stage were behind plexiglass, people looked at me like I was wacked, but when they saw the tall, good looking guy I was with, they went back to enjoying the show without challenging me and a sense that things were okay and I couldn't be totally out of line. One person suggested they were behind plexiglass for "artistic reasons". (Does this remind you of anything?) The only woman to whom I posed this question (there were not many of us around, remember) didn't care, just shrugged it off. Which made me cry (don't worry, nobody noticed; I didn't make a scene or anything). Okay, I was overreacting, I know and I think they were behind the plexiglass for reasons having to do with sound and volume, not art or overt sexism. When the last person I asked gave me this plausible explanation, I stopped asking and felt better. But why was I the only one asking?

I know, this all sounds outrageously sensitive. And it is. But let me put it in context: the night before the concert, I co-facilitated a weekly group for men who batter their partners. I've been doing this for about 2 months and I'm still getting my bearings with it. I've led an awfully sheltered existence and never run with men like this, who are overtly sexist, entitled, homophobic and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. And lately I've been reading some research that really questions the effectiveness of groups like this. Some suggest, with good reason, that batterer programs may actually do more harm than good, teaching the men to be better batterers or to use forms of coercive control that will keep them out of trouble but still entrap their partners. Also, since most of us in the battered women's movement agree that the problem of violence against women is cultural and not the problem of individual men, why do we think running psycho-educational groups with individual men is going to create change? So these were the thoughts going through my head after group the other night, which led me to a nocturnal reminder of how very dangerous these men may be to the women in their lives. And how utterly powerless I am to do anything about that fact. It was a terrifying and overwhelming nightmare, from which I awoke with my heart racing.

So, here I am, the next night, at a rock 'n roll concert. The band was great--I loved the music, don't get me wrong. But that's why I felt all the more betrayed. And there was an edge in this crowd of men, an undercurrent of violence that was contagious and made me want to punch the woman who was too much in my space. And the bartender (also a woman) who was rude to me. What was going on here? I missed the hippies. Maybe I really can't roll with dirtbags and that's just a pretty fantasy. But even more, I missed my comrades, my sisters-in-arms. The women who get it and don't think I'm being "too sensitive" when I wonder why the crowd is 90% men and why the only women on the stage are behind plexiglass. They worry about these things, too. My women friends who, like me, have listened to countless stories from our sisters who have been beaten, battered, isolated and terrorized. And who know that these things don't happen in some kind of isolated, individually pathologized way. And who understand the guilt I felt at falling back on my privilege as a married woman when I felt undermined by my lack of gender privilege.

Finally, there was at least one person at that rock 'n roll show who totally understood where I was coming from. Yeah, of course, Neil. He didn't for a second shame me for being too sensitive or emotional. He gave me a hug and made sure I knew I wasn't alone. He gets it and he gets me. He's incredibly cool and smart and thoughtful. And he's always got my back.

Here's a picture of me at the Bootyjuice show last weekend with some of my comrades, high-fiving Carolyn with Misty by my side. I'm very thankful for them. (Bootyjuice is funky, jazzy fusion type music. Lots of hippies in the audience).