Punk - an equal opportunity program?

by  Annie

What is it like to be a girl into punk? It isn't that much different than being female in any other social group, except feminists or homosexuals maybe. It is the nature of subculture. When a minority culture is oppressed, it often mimics and exaggerates the roles of the dominant group that it tries to get away from. The majority of societies (worldwide) perpetuates male dominance and female passivity. Then there's punk which is (supposed to be) against the 'evil' of dominant society. Even with the advent of riot grrrls there is still much sexism because the girls are now trying to have power over the males while claiming this to be equal.

Within punk males still dominate, run the 'world', get more respect, are taken more seriously, and they stand together more than girls do.  Girls are strange though. No matter how gutter you wanna get, we still have this thought about how we look to other people (guys) in the back of our minds. It's engrained from puberty, even sometimes before. If you have a group of female friends, you're lucky. When you're always around guys as friends they start treating you like you're a guy too. At the same time, if you go to a show with other girls, guys will only talk to you to scam on you. Which (usually) isn't why guys talk to guys. There is a homophic tendency among a lot of male punks as well, leading to macho guys showing off in the pit.

When I went to shows with a boyfriend and he would meet another guy, usually from a band, I became invisible. Not because I didn't get introduced (I can live without formalities) but the guy he was talking to didn't even glance in my direction once. It was as if I wasn't there. To make matters worse, I asked him "oh, what was your name again?" and before he could answer my boyfriend answered instead. So I felt like he was saying "shut up, you're not supposed to speak to him, I'm speaking to him". He talked with other males that would practically ignore me too. It gets very annoying after a while, especially when it doesn't happen with females. At least they will look at me and smile to let me know that they see me standing there.

Sex, may be less of a taboo than in the mainstream societies of the world, but is still viewed differently depending on who participates in it. Girls are looked at as sex objects more often than guys, and get more attention with the less they wear. How come the typical punk girl outfit looks like a bad version of a Cyndi Lauper wannabe 80's prostitute? And why don't we see guys wearing hardly anything?  They do it in the pit by taking off their shirt which shows off their piercings and tats (which is ultimately to look cool so girls will like them). At the same time guys crowd surf to be cool, the girls who do it get felt up. I'm not saying they shouldn't dress how they want or crowd surf or anything like that. I'm just saying that there is an unequal distribution of power among all people, even in the "utopian ideals" of punk rock. When I hear of a band that I don't know about, I almost never picture a female in it. I picture 4 guys and when there is a female in the band, I think "wow, how cool". Changing the clothes we wear won't take away the sexism among us, but it is definately something we all need to be aware of.

It might make us think that there's no way around the existing sexism in the world. There is a temptation to get even for all the hell that a group of people has put another group through. Equal rights for the masses begins with US by how we treat each other and what we think of each other.  It's time for us to stop ignoring the real problems, stop getting even and start making things work!