Women in Music- Part One | "Girl Indie" is not a genre

I'd like to introduce you to one of my closest friends, Kendall. We have known each other since our middle school choir days, and continue making music together in our individual music ventures. Here are her thoughts on being a female in the music industry. -Allison

That's a picture of my band, "Cartoon Bar Fight." Upon first glance, you'll note that there is only one lady in this group--and that's me.

I have been songwriting, singing and playing in Cartoon Bar Fight for over four years. I initially started the group in Fall of 2007, during my first semester at San Jose State University, and was quickly joined by Dirk (the lovely fellow on the far right, who also happens to be my boyfriend), the only other remaining original member.

We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and play indie rock music influenced by bands like Eisley, Radiohead, Feist, Brand New, Bon Iver, Neutral Milk Hotel and Arcade Fire.

I have certainly been spoiled to find such intelligent, respectful, creative and extremely talented band mates, and I love them all like family. With them, I don't feel there is much of a divide because of gender. I don't feel lonely, or like the "odd one out" or anything like that, and this is because we share common goals, interests and skill levels. Though I would love to have another woman in the band for vocal harmonies and duets (I adore the way female voices sound in harmony), we haven't found her yet.

Over the years, I've given a fair amount of thought to how gender plays out within our band, as well as in the lower levels of the music business. Getting in to the music industry is tricky for anyone, but it can get even more frustrating for women who are trying to make their way, due to subtle sexism perpetuated by band mates, family members, booking agents, sound engineers, folks in the audience, and even from ourselves. Allow me to count some of the ways:

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Guest Post: Passionate

Let’s Get Passionate!

Romantic even. Let’s get ridiculously silly sometimes.

And let’s face it: Passion is a woman’s catharsis. It heals. It refreshes.

Now let me expound….

Last night I was doing two of my favorite things—eating good food and laughing with family—and we were hit with a storm. First, it was just the wind building up. We noticed the trees bending and waving wildly. The evening sky turned shades darker as black clouds rolled in and covered our neighborhood. And as we all gathered outside to revel, the first drops started pounding the pavement.

I love a good storm. In a silly, unexplainable, passionate way! My husband knows this about me, and he grins when my “stormy side” comes out. Truly. Storms do something physical to me—my heart races. I suddenly wish I was wearing a dress from Sense and Sensibility, so I could run out into the rain and get soaked down to my bloomers. And in my disheveled state, I would expect my husband to run out and kiss me really fantastically!

Okay, so, passion. Storms make me passionate—romantic, silly, etc. But I get other kinds of passionate about other kinds of things. A Mumford & Sons song gets my blood racing also…. But in this case, it becomes a heady euphoria, and I feel like I could really, truly change the world. Equally unexplainable. But their music fills me with passion.

But I didn’t run out into the storm last night—not in front of everyone. How silly I would have looked! And I don’t tell people about my stormy side in casual conversation. Of course not. They would listen to a statement or two, a shine of embarrassment behind their eyes, and tell me that they hear their kids crying, or they really should get dinner started, or whatever.

But then I wonder if that’s how it would really play out. What if I told it to just the right person, who listened and then said, “I know! Every time I pass a field of golden wheat, I want to pull my car over and run through it. I can’t explain it. I just need to do it, with a passion!”

Or, “Yes! When I hear my boyfriend play the piano, I want to run over and jump into his lap, take his fingers, and kiss each one! But isn’t that silly?”

I imagine myself looking at that person entirely differently forever—in a beautifully passionate way. I would suddenly recognize a “bosom friend,” someone to be silly, deep and passionate with…

Aka, someone to be real with.

Wouldn’t that be amazing? To see everyone’s passions on the outside? To see a depth in someone—even about something trivial—that we have never seen before? To understand what things truly move everyone around us?

Why speak in Victorian-era statements, when we could be so much more real with each other? I certainly do not mean the kind of real where we tell people their clothing/hair/etc is ugly; where we go around offending people because “Oh, I’m just being real.” No, that’s not real. That’s narrow-minded. It’s mean.

I mean real, where people know I feel deeply about things. Where instead of saying, “Oh, yeah, thunderstorms are cool,” I say, “Yes! Thunderstorms make me want to run out into the middle of the street and hold my arms out in blissful welcome!” Where they see me as a person that is moved, that is emotional, that resounds inside. Someone with passion for….whatever it is that I feel passionate about. What’s wrong with being deep and silly anymore? Why must we look and act detached, controlled, serene, mild, benign, bland, flat?

I am passionate about thunderstorms! I am passionate about Mumford & Sons!

I am passionate about My Husband, My Children, My Faith!

I am passionate about books! About writing; and how words are put together!

I am passionate about the earth around me! About the ocean!

I am passionate! I am romantic! I am real! I am me!

(Ahh, doesn’t that feel good?!)

This essay was written by the delightfully passionate Charity Brooks. You can see her other essay here and visit her personal blog here.

Just Being

Today we have a treat for you. My friend Charity has kindly written a little essay about... well... about just being. While she calls herself an aspiring writer, I call her a bona fide writer. She is the kind of person who everyone likes and who likes everyone. I hope you enjoy her essay as much as I have.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. . . It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

~e.e. cummings, 1955

I have been pondering the great art of Just Being lately…. It is precisely that. An art.

When I was a child, I had an incredible imagination—so my parents say. In a single afternoon, I was a princess trapped by lava monsters, Rogue of the X-Men, a chef making stone soup and mud patties, a mermaid hiding from the humans, and a singer whose voice changed the world. I was anyone, really anyone, because I didn’t know limits or boxes as a child. There was no concept of genres in a seven year-old’s mind. There just was. I just was.

And then I was a teenager. And though I had mystifying periods, I still basically knew who I was… or who I wanted to be. I knew I was kind, that I didn’t like cliques and exclusions. I knew that I loved music, and that the music I loved wasn’t the top 40 pop chart (you know, that’s never changed. Hm). I knew I was an anti-fashionista—my clothes were thrift-store by choice, mismatched by choice, and wrong era by choice. And I knew that I wanted to write great things. I wanted to be a great person.

And then I got lost. I thought it happened later in life than commonly occurs. Most people have their identity crisis in high school/college, don’t they? And then they figure it all out, and they know—for the rest of their lives—just who they are. And I suddenly discovered, after college degrees, nearly five years of marriage, and two kids, that I couldn’t find my self.

The curious part was that I wasn’t sure how it had happened. I couldn’t pin down a culprit for my lost identity. My marriage was absolutely lovely; always has been—and as far as I can do anything about it—always will be. My kids were beautiful, albeit nuts, like all normal kids. I was proud of my education, and I never have regretted being an English major/an aspiring writer.

So where did I lose myself? If everything around me was just as it had always been, where had I gone?

I pondered for months over the lost me, and I made a discovery: I had become uncomfortable with the art of Just Being. How could I just be a college grad, but not be working in my field? How could I just be a wife, and not a trophy wife? How could I just be a mother, and be forever working behind the scenes? How was I not a New York Times bestselling novelist, with a body like Jillian Michaels, involved in daycares and charities, with a home featured on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens? How could I just be?

So I sat down with myself and went through the missing pieces of me, one by one. I realized two things: I was lost somewhere amid comparisons and limits. I was worried that I wasn’t a complete person because I saw others more complete around me. What is the complete person? Is there a template? I am learning to let go of the myth of completeness, because 1) the definition changes for each person, and 2) isn’t that why we’re allotted seventy, eighty years in this life? To learn to become the most complete version of ourselves, unique and separate from the complete others around us? So how could I possibly compare? There is no one to measure up to but my own future self… And so I’ll cross that comparison bridge in a few more decades, when the only person I must answer to is me.

And the limits? I had finally learned about genre, that concept so innocently unknown in my childhood. I couldn’t possibly be certain things simply because I wasn’t that kind of person. I didn’t fit in that box. Where are these boxes kept? And who labels them? And who enforces them? I am learning to let go of the myth of limitations, because only I know what I am capable of. My limitations are only set by the efforts I make. And that is a part of myself I can control/change—it is not beyond me. And really, what if I never publish a book? Then I am not a writer? I am who I choose to be and who I work to be, and that is not determined by the world’s standards, charts, or figures.

So was I lost? I still believe in kindness, in inclusion. I still dress to the beat of my own wardrobe’s drum. I still listen to underground music and shudder at most country songs. I am still intelligent and capable, even if I have no paychecks to prove it. I am a blissfully happy wife. I am a proud, growing mother. I am a writer. I am me.

And I can be anything else… someday, down the road, I will be many other things. Perhaps a professor of dystopian literature; a public speaker/ambassador for the cause of abolishing illiteracy; the front man (woman) of a Heart cover band; a world traveler; a grandmother; an ice cream shop owner. I am learning that I can be anything I want.

And that I can just be.

Guest Post: A Heritage of Women's Literature

i've been swamped with finals. lucky for you, that means you get to hear from someone else! natalie's writing is delightful. read more at her personal blog (which is fantastic!). enjoy...

Greetings! My name is Natalie, and I’m excited to make a guest appearance on this blog. My sister Jessica is a regular, but she asked me to fill in for her today.

My thoughts today on womanhood drift towards one specific aspect of women’s contribution to society. I recently graduated with a BA in English, and as I learned to both analyze and create literature, I couldn’t help but notice how priceless the female voice is in our literary canon. Western history shows that before the 19^th century, education for women was rare; thus, it was a struggle for female authors to be published and recognized. But the brave souls who paved the way for a future of women and literature would not be silenced.

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the advocates of women’s literacy, publishing A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. A Vindication argues for many aspects of women’s rights, including that of education. Wollstonecraft describes the dangers that generated from the ignorance of women, writing that their ignorance injures their moral character, ability to raise children, and encourages vanity and sentimentalism. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication was a near-immediate success, showing that the world was ready to take a serious look at women’s education.

Perhaps a more recognizable name than Mary Wollstonecraft is Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft’s daughter, and author of Frankenstein. The daughter, like the mother, became an accomplished writer, and Frankenstein is canonized as a beloved romantic/gothic novel. It successfully explores the dangers of playing God, the consequences of obsession, and many other themes and motifs. One of my favorite moments in all of literature comes from this book, as young Frankenstein beholds his creature come to life and realizes the horrific monster he has created:

“It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered against the panes, and my candle was nearly burned out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

Doesn’t that just give you a shiver?

Thank Mary Shelley’s genius for that little shiver. We should also thank her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, for advocating a woman’s right to be education and educating her daughter accordingly. One mother’s passion translated into her daughter’s success, and both mother and daughter live on in the wonderful legacy of women’s literature