Riot Grrrl

Punk music and its accompanying culture, because of it's focus on rebelliousness and machismo, can seem like forbidden territory for women. As Kristen Schilt says in her article "Riot Grrrl Is...": The Contestation over Meaning in a Music Scene, "As hardcore increasingly became an arena for male punks to assert their masculinity through aggressive behavior, female punks found themselves pushed out of active participation in the scene and moved into behind-the-scenes roles such as show organizers or band groupies." She goes on to detail how Riot Grrrl, a female-oriented punk fanzine, was established as a response to such masculine developments, making sure that people were aware that feminism and punk weren't mutually exclusive. Whole communities of female punk rockers developed around the idea of feminist punk. However, unlike the goth community which possesses a universal sense of identity, the "Riot Grrrl" scene was, by design, made up of different communities that chose for themselves what they should hold ideal, making it more accessible and pertinent. One problem within the community, nonetheless, was race: it was being ignored. Problems arose again later on within the community as the media tried to create a uniform "Riot Grrrl" stereotype, which eventually led to the dissolution of the scene. The Riot Grrrl spirit lives on in the women that found new outlets with the confidence gained through their experiences.

I see many similarities between the punk scene detailed in Schilt's article and the hip hop/rap scene today. Mainstream Hip hop today, in my opinion, is very degrading to women and reliant upon misplaced ideas of masculinity: getting money, getting women. I am not saying that ALL rap and hip hop is masogynistic; I am saying that much of the prominant, mainstream material can be. One need to just look at music videos which depict women as objects, merely entertainment for the male artist. From this a community of "video girls" has formed of girls who go and audition for a chance to appear in one of the afore mentioned music videos.

Discussion:
In music scenes dominated by machismo, is there pressure for female artists to become more masculine, more aggressive?