What Does a Vagina Sound Like?
I sat on a 'gender in music' panel on Saturday, and this was my opening address. I considered not posting this up, but given that two of my fellow panelists declared themselves to be "not feminists" and didn't know "why we [were] still having this conversation", i feel like its important to share and keep the conversation about the way women in bands are talked about going. So, without further ado...
5 reasons Female Fronted never was and never should be a thing.
A few months ago, my band Lionizer was described the following way:
“Recalls, fairly indiscriminately, much of the sound of girl fronted, fuzzy rock bands of the ‘90s.”
And it’s infuriating. I mean, which girl-fronted fuzzy rock bands? There are so many of them. Is this reviewer saying we sound like The Superjesus or Killing Heidi or No Doubt? What about Sleater Kinney or Riot Grrl? Or did they just think “that person sounds like they have a vagina” and figured hey, that’s totally an appropriate way to determine whether or not an audience will enjoy a band.
1) Female-fronted is not a genre, yet it’s sold as one.
Genres in music are all but meaningless in 2014, yet the label “female fronted” gets whacked on the front of more bands than “indie”. So what the fuck does it mean? Is there a specific sound that “females” make? Is there a set cadence to their songs? Or is this simply a new way to lump together all the bands with women who sing into one easily-avoidable category for all the people who “just don’t like the sound of girls’ voices”?
See diversity is important, and being able to market yourself on the things that make you different is important. But if it comes along with segregating a whole slice of the music population as being inherently different based solely on (what exactly – genitalia? Karyotype?) instead of the actual music they play then you have a problem.
And before you give me the “girls just sound different” bullshit…
2) The range of women’s voices, experiences, and styles is just as broad as men’s.
Do you know arch enemy? They started with a man at the front in Johan Liiva (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkuL8Nl8E1c), then 4 years (and 3 albums) later switched to Angela Gossow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2QWv6R6k_g). Can you hear a difference in rhythm, pitch, or cadence between these two singers? Can you hear anything that might make fans of the genre suddenly displeased with the sound? I sure as hell can’t.
See, there isn’t any singular way that women sound any more than there is one way that guys sound, and liking one band with a woman in it doesn’t mean you’ll like all bands with women in them. And speaking of the rest of the band…
3) Why is only the front person important?
Assuming that the front person is actually responsible for writing the lyrics their singing, why are they the only woman in the band that matters in this classification? What about the women who play bass? Or drums? Or guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, trumpets, trombones, cellos or literally any other instrument? If gender doesn’t matter to the description of those musicians, then it sure as fuck shouldn’t matter to the vocalist.
This is especially true in the case where we are bringing up diversity as the reason to even have a classification like “female fronted”. If we want an easy way to promote and celebrate women in bands then why are we limiting ourselves? Which brings me nicely to
4) “Female” is a super problematic term to use in the first place.
I mean, are we performing genetic tests on these people before we apply these labels now? If not, then really we are just making some broad assumptions about people. The idea of “female fronted”-ness as a thing serves to take all the experiences of any non cis person (ie trans*, non-binary, agender or gender non confirming people) and place them all under one category that they themselves, as people, would not classify themselves under. Now we have to have uncomfortable conversations about whether or not Laura Jane Grace (who is a trans woman) is suitable for this category, or if Andrea Gibson (who is genderqueer) should still be listed on account of their chromosomes, or where artists like Porch Cat and Lucas Silveria (both trans men) fit.
Well maybe we just need more labels then? More boxes to appropriately ascribe the life choices, experiences, vocal styles or whatever a listener can expect to hear when they press play on the bands songs. Except…
5) Labels don’t encourage diversity and inclusion, they encourage separation and exclusion.
This is really the crux of the whole thing. When we use labels to define ourselves, we are just as much defining who we are not as who we are - especially so when the label is only applied to the group that is considered “different” from the norm. You’d never hear anyone refer to Blink 182 as a “boy band” though they technically are, nor would a review of Violent Soho describe the band as “male-fronted rock”.
But Paramore? Allison Weiss? The Heathers? Hell, The Shakeys? Well they’re different you see. They’re “girl” bands. They’re not part of this scene, they have their own little clique, their own audience to play to.
