Shed your skin.

If it’s some young dude’s first show, and he’s comfortable enough to start grabbing the singer of his favorite band, while many young girls have had to feel scared to approach merch tables, talk to people in bands, and find somewhere safe to watch the bands they like, I think that really says something.

Just start the video at 5:15https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_yGu8w1CIg

here are the lyrics that follow if you’re not familiar:You’re a fucking groupie 
You’re in it for the social scene 
You know you don’t give a shit 
About what the message really means 
You don’t care about the music 
You don’t care about the words we say 
Who the fuck do you think you are 
Anyway? 
You walk around like some fucking slut 
You’re getting me enraged 
‘Cause you’ll crawl up anyone’s ass 
Just to be on the fucking stage 
It’s not who you are, it’s who you know 
Who the fuck are you trying to fool 
If you’re looking for status 
Then go back to your fucking high school!

And people still insist this ridiculous thing about girls at shows has some truth, even with just “some girls”. Well I put some thought into where this absurd stereotype came from and here’s just one scenario to consider.

Say you’re a girl you go to a show and you’re new to a scene, you’re on this island. How are you going to make friends with anyone, you’re surrounded by men. Any guy who takes any interest in being your friend is trying to fuck you, or say he’s really nice and he wants to date you. But either way, suddenly your only hope at camaraderie in this scene has a romantic twist, and trust me they’re all trying all at once. So suddenly you’re a slut for even just agreeing to any of these bombarding advances. and really–what other option is there– stand alone and don’t talk to anyone? Isn’t hardcore supposed to be about friendship? I guess if you are a dude it can be.

Try and find one of the few girls who is there to befriend? Not so fast. Pretty much young boys see that if they hang out and listen to all the right bands and wear all the right clothes, they will be like the “influential people” in the scene, the ones in cool bands, playing shows, running shit, etc. You don’t see these things as options as a young girl, so pretty much you’re only hope at any power is to HANG OUT with the cool guy. SO. Lets say you’ve made it through some bullshit, and you have earned a little respect in the scene–the only thing that could bring you down is if some young skank steals your boyfriend, right? Maybe the boys tell you that YOU are cool, but all the rest of the girls are posers and sluts? That makes you feel good because it proves your worth as the cool girl, cause you’re not really getting that through personal accomplishment. So girls are all on their separate islands–drawing their only power from men– which men love–cause they control it. So its not real power at all. (If something bad happens in a relationship, they can just socially excommunicate girls because all their friends will have their backs, yeah brotherhood!). So women are forced to perpetuate this internalized misogyny out of sheer self-preservation.

And here I go, making a one band that doesn’t pander to the experience of men. One that prioritizes women. Doesn’t every other hardcore band prioritize men with their tropes of friendship and brotherhood? Cause we never really got that experience.