#in a way that could regress feminism a few decades | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

definitearticle · 3 years

Text

Dear Baby Boomers...

"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

Older friends, come in! Sit down! I'm so glad you came.

Can I get you a water?

So listen. As your friendly neighborhood geriatric millennial, I need you to understand something. It's important, and it's going to hurt. But pain can be a sign of growth, and I want you to hear this from a friend. So know that this comes from a place of love.

So nu. I'm gonna ease into this by making sure we're on the same page with some ideas.

You know Bob Dylan's song, "The Times They Are A-Changin'," yeah? It might not have been THE anthem of your youth, but it's certainly one that's held up over time. It speaks to the ever-continuing cycle of change and the need for members of the previous generation (and those in power generally) to "get out of the [way] if you can't lend a hand."

Thing is, younger generations have been asking older generations to listen, to understand, and to help the culture progress since time immemorial. And older generations have traditionally pushed back. So your generation's experience of pushing your parents' generation into begrudging acceptance of civil rights, feminism, et al, isn't new.

But y'all came up with some great turns of phrase to express it. One of my favorites, technically coined by Jack Weinberg (5 years too old to be a Baby Boomer) was "Don't trust anyone over 30." It was an offhand phrase said in anger when Weinberg felt that the reporter interviewing him wasn't actually listening, but was instead looking for ulterior motives so that he could dismiss the message of his protest.

But the phrase stuck, and it was used not only as a rallying cry, but also as a talking point by older folks who wanted to dismiss the New Left as a bunch of whiny brats, rather than people we now know were on the right side of history regarding the war, police brutality, and so on.

So with that in mind, in the words of The Who, let's talk about MY generation, and the even younger generation just starting to come into their own.

You know how a few years ago, there were a whole lot of women in the #MeToo movement who were talking about their experiences with men and how they constantly feared sexual assault? And then you had a whole bunch of idiots coming on saying "Not all men!" because they weren't used to their demographic being the target of negative criticism? Yeah, they were idiots, and you knew it. Of course "not all men." But the MeToo movement wasn't about hating men. It was about hearing women and understanding their fears.

And by and large, you understood that. You were pretty solid on it. Good for you! No, seriously, I'm really proud of you for continuing the fight for feminism that you were on the front lines of back in your more enthusiastic years.

And you know how #BlackLivesMatter has been a thing for several years now, and how it's really a continuation of the Civil Rights movement that you grew up in? But of course, idiots tried to reframe the narrative by saying "All lives matter!" And you knew that that was just a smokescreen. Of course all lives matter, but once again black lives were being treated as if they don't matter. And the reason you recognized this was because was all familiar to you. It was the same scene you remember playing out on your 12" black-and-white screens decades ago, where protests erupted against an injustice (frequently assault or murder of an unarmed black man) and the resulting police violence shook the conscience of the country.

So you stood with BLM, or at the very least listened and acknowledged when it was explained to you. We appreciate it, truly. We do.

But here's the thing. You're not the only ones we were talking to. And a whole lot of the "all lives matter!" and "not all men!" crowd? They were from your generation. Now, not all of them, certainly. We definitely have our regressive stooges in Gen X and Millenial age groups. But let's be honest, a strong majority of the people raising a ruckus against "these kids today, with their PC woke brigade cancel culture" are members of the Baby Boom generation. And those who aren't? Well...they have the same kind of regressive attitude that comes from being the third generation out.

You know...like your parents and grandparents were when Dylan wrote his song. When your social circle embraced "Don't trust anyone over 30."

There's a frustration that comes from trying to explain something important to people who appear to not wish to listen to you, but are instead spending their time looking for reasons to discredit you, or make you feel inferior, or find any excuse to belittle you and the incredibly important message you're trying to express. When you get to that breaking point, you need a way to ripcord out of the conversation in a way that expresses not only that you're through pretending to maintain civil discourse, but also that you recognize that there was no intent for honest dialogue in the first place. You need a shorthand phrase for "You're a dishonest, condescending jerk who couldn't care less about doing the right thing or about the lives of anyone other than yourself. I am through wasting my time casting pearls before swine. Good day, sir! I SAID GOOD DAY!"

Weinberg felt it in his interview.

You've undoubtedly felt it yourself, countless times.

My generation feels it constantly. And we've come up with a pretty good phrase that encapsulates our frustration with those in power who've apparently forgotten the lessons of the past and are happy to sit in apathy in the middle of the road and never lend a hand.

And that phrase is "Okay, Boomer."

Oof. Yeah.

I know.

It stings. A lot.

And I can hear you screaming at me right now. "How dare you judge us based on our age! This is ageism, pure and simple! It's hate! Not all old people! All ages matter!"

Shhh, shhh, it's okay. You're in a safe space. We're friends. No one is judging you.

See, just like MeToo wasn't denigrating all men, and BLM wasn't saying that non-black lives didn't matter, the use of "Boomer" here is not about age. It's about the same progressive vs regressive divide you experienced when you were young, that was largely drawn along generational lines.

Not all Baby Boomers are "Okay, Boomers," and not all "Okay, Boomers" are Baby Boomers.

If you're with us on the issues, if you're supportive of people's self-identity and fight for equality, then it doesn't matter what age you are. You're gold.

But if you get told "Okay, Boomer," it's not about your age either. You've just been told that your approach to the conversation indicates to the speaker that you don't want to engage on the issues in an open and honest manner.

It means that you've probably hit a blind spot in your experience which is incredibly common and nothing to be ashamed of, but is also something that needs to be addressed.

It means you've upset the person talking to you, and they've given up trying to be reasonable with you.

It's not hate speech. It's not ageism.

It's a wake-up call. For the times, they are a-changin'.

Weinberg aged out of the demographic he framed in his statement 5 years after he made it. But from what I can find online, he continues to this day to fight the good fight. He was an anti-war activist and a union organizer before becoming a champion of environmental issues. He turned 81 earlier this year. A statistical tally in the Silent Generation, he was nonetheless clearly a member of a young Baby Boomer movement in their prime.

You can stick with us. Join your voice to ours like Weinberg joined his voice to your generation's. Like Martin Luther King (born 1929) did. Like Abbie Hoffman (1936), John Lewis (1940), Gloria Steinem (1934), Bertrand Russel (1872)...

There's plenty of room on the right side of history to be an older person that the young'uns can trust, a mentor we can talk to, someone who will actually *listen* to us and help us move the culture forward.

Or you can be someone who embodies the cause of the admonishment "Never trust anyone over 30."

But if you decide to do that, if you choose to close your ears to the pleas of the younger generation because they don't show you deference and respect? Then you're not a Baby Boomer, a phrase once used to dismiss your generation as youthful, idealistic, and unreasonable.

Then you're just an "Okay, Boomer."

71 notes · View notes

monroetalks · 4 years

Text

The Woman Who Will Not Die: an essay about Marilyn Monroe by Gloria Steinem

It has been nearly a quarter of a century since the death of a minor American actress named Marilyn Monroe. There is no reason for her to be a part of my consciousness as I walk down a midtown New York street frilled with color and action and life.

In a shop window display of white summer dresses, I see several huge photographs – a life-size cutout of Marilyn standing in a white halter dress, some close-ups of her vulnerable, please-love-me smile – but they don’t look dated. Oddly, Marilyn seems to be just as much a part of this street scene as the neighboring images of models who could now be her daughters – even her granddaughters. I walk another block and pass a record store featuring the hit albums of a rock star named Madonna. She has imitated Marilyn Monroe’s hair, style, and clothes, but subtracted her vulnerability. Instead of using seduction to offer men whatever they want, Madonna uses it to get what she wants – a 1980’s difference that has made her the idol of teenage girls. Nevertheless, her international symbols of femaleness are pure Marilyn.

A few doors away, a bookstore displays two volumes on Marilyn Monroe in its well-stocked window. The first is nothing but random photographs, one of many such collections that have been published over the years. The second is one of several recent exposes on the circumstances surrounding Monroe’s 1962 death from an accidental or purposeful overdose of sleeping pills. Could organized crime, Jimmy Hoffa in particular, have planned to use her friendship with the Kennedys and her suicide – could Hoffa and his friends even have caused that suicide – in order to embarrass or blackmail Robert Kennedy, who was definitely a mafia enemy and probably her lover? Only a few months ago, Marilyn Monroe’s name made international headlines again when a British television documentary on this conspiracy theory was shown and a network documentary made in the United States was suppressed, with potential pressure from crime-controlled unions or the late Robert Kennedy’s family as rumored reasons.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else. — From the Unfinished Biography of Marilyn Monroe

As I turn the corner into my neighborhood, I pass a newsstand where the face of one more young Marilyn Monroe look-alike stares up at me from a glossy magazine cover. She is Kate Mailer, Norman Mailer’s daughter, who was born the year that Marilyn Monroe died. Now she is starring in “Strawhead,” a “memory play” about Monroe written by Norman Mailer, who is so obsessed with this long-dead sex goddess that he had written one long biography and another work – half fact, half fiction – about her, even before casting his daughter in this part.

The next morning, I turn on the television and see a promotion for a show on film director Billy Wilder. The only clip chosen to attract viewers and represent Wilder’s entire career is one of Marilyn Monroe singing a few breathless bars in Some Like It Hot, one of two films they made together.

These are everyday signs of a unique longevity. If you add her years of movie stardom to the years since her death, Marilyn Monroe has been a part of our lives and imaginations for nearly four decades. That’s a very long time for one celebrity to survive in a throwaway culture.

In the 1930’s, when English critic Cyril Connolly proposed a definition of posterity to measure whether a writer’s work had stood the test of time, he suggested that posterity should be limited to 10 years. The form and content of popular culture were changing too fast, he explained, to make any artist accountable for more than a decade.

Since then, the pace of change has been accelerated even more. Everything from the communications revolution to multinational entertainment has altered the form of culture. Its content has been transformed by civil rights, feminism, an end to film censorship, and much more. Nonetheless, Monroe’s personal and intimate ability to inhabit our fantasies has gone right on. As I write this, she is still better known than most living movie stars, most world leaders, and most television personalities. The surprise is that she rarely has been taken seriously enough fur us to ask why that is so.

One simple reason for her life story’s endurance is the premature end of it. Personalities and narratives projected onto the screen of our imaginations are far more haunting – and far more likely to be the stuff of conspiracies and conjuncture – if they have not been allowed to play themselves out to their logical or illogical ends. James Dean’s brief life is the subject of a cult, but the completed lives of such “outsiders” as Gary Cooper or Henry Fonda are not. Each day in the brief Camelot of John Kennedy inspires as much speculation as each year in the long New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt. The few years of Charlie “Bird” Parker’s music inspire graffiti (“Bird Lives”), but the many musical years of Duke Ellington do not.

When the past dies there is mourning, but when the future dies, our imaginations are compelled to carry it on.

Would Marilyn Monroe have become the serious actress she aspired to be? Could she have survived the transition from sex goddess to mortal woman that aging would impose? Could she had stopped her disastrous marriages to men whose images she wanted to absorb (Beloved American DiMaggio, Serious Intellectual Miller), and found a partner who loved and understood her as she really was? Could she have kicked the life-wasting habits of addiction and procrastination? Would she have had or adopted children? Found support in the growing strength of women or been threatened by it? Entered the world of learning or continued to be ridiculed for trying? Survived and even enjoyed the age of 60 she now would be?

Most important, would she finally have escaped her lifetime combination of two parts talent, one part victim, and one part joke? Would she have been “taken seriously,” as she so badly wanted to be?

We will never know. Every question is as haunting as any of its possible answers.

But the poignancy of this incompleteness is not enough to explain Marilyn Monroe’s enduring power. Even among brief public lives, few become parables. Those that endure seem to hook into our deepest emotions of hope or fear, dream or nightmare, of what our own fates might be. Successful leaders also fall into one group or the other: those who invoke a threatening future and promise disaster unless we obey, and those who conjure up a hopeful future and promise reward if we will follow. It’s this power of either fear or hope that makes a personal legend survive, from the fearsome extreme of Adolph Hitler (Did he really escape? Might he have lived on in the jungles of South America?) to the hopeful myth of Zapata waiting in the hills of Mexico to rescue his people. The same is true for the enduring fictions of popular culture, from the frightening villain to the hopeful hero, each of whom is reincarnated again and again.

In an intimate way during her brief life, Marilyn Monroe hooked into both those extremes of emotion. She personified many of the secret hopes of men and many secret fears of women.

To men, wrote Norman Mailer, her image was “gorgeous, forgiving, humorous, compliant and tender… she would ask no price.” She was the child-woman who offered pleasure without adult challenge; a lover who neither judged nor asked anything in return. Both the roles she played and her own public image embodied a masculine hope for a woman who is innocent and sensuously experienced at the same time. “In fact,” as Marilyn said toward the end of her career, “my popularity seems almost entirely a masculine phenomenon.”

Since most men have experienced female power only in their childhoods, they associate it with a time when they themselves were powerless. This will continue as long as children are raised almost totally by women, and rarely see women in authority outside the home. That’s why male adults, and some females too, experience the presence of a strong woman as a dangerous regression to a time of their own vulnerability and dependence. For men, especially, who are trained to measure manhood and maturity by their distance from the world of women, being forced back to that world for female companionship may be very threatening indeed. A compliant child-woman like Monroe solves this dilemma by offering sex WITHOUT the power of an adult woman, much less of an equal. As a child herself, she allows men to feel both conquering and protective; to be both dominating and admirable at the same time.

For women, Monroe embodies kinds of fear that were just as basic as the hope she offered men: the fear of a sexual competitor who could take away men on whom women’s identities and even livelihoods might depend; the fear of having to meet her impossible standard of always giving – and asking nothing in return; the nagging fear that we might share her feminine fate of being vulnerable, unserious, constantly in danger of becoming a victim.

Aside from her beautiful face, which women envied, she was nothing like the female stars that women moviegoers have made popular. Those stars offered at the least the illusion of being in control of their fates – and perhaps having an effect on the world. Stars of the classic “women’s movies” were actresses like Bette Davis, who made her impact by sheer force of emotion; or Katherine Hepburn, who was always intelligent and never victimized for long; or even Doris Day, who charmed the world into conforming to her own virginal standards. Their figures were admirable and neat, but without the vulnerability of the big-breasted woman in a society that regresses men and keeps them obsessed with the maternal symbols of breasts and hips. Watching Monroe was quite different: women were forced to worry for her vulnerability – and thus their own. They might feel like a black moviegoer watching a black actor play a role that was too passive, too obedient, or a Jew watching a Jewish character who was selfish and avaricious. In spite of some extra magic, some face-saving sincerity and humor, Marilyn Monroe was still close to the humiliating stereotype of a dumb blonde: depersonalized, sexual, even a joke. Yet few women yet had the self-respect to object on behalf of their sex, as one would object on behalf of a race or religion, they still might be left feeling a little humiliated – or threatened – without knowing why.

“I have always had a talent for irritating women since I was fourteen,” Marilyn wrote in her unfinished auto-biography. “Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.”

But all that was before her death and the revelations surrounding it. The moment she was gone, Monroe’s vulnerability was no longer just a turn-on for many men and an embarrassment for many women. It was a tragedy. Whether that final overdose was suicide or not, both men and women were forced to recognize the insecurity and private terrors that had caused her to attempt suicide several times before.

Men who had never known her wondered if their love and protection might have saved her. Women who had never known her wondered if their empathy and friendship might have done the same. For both women and men, the ghost of Marilyn came to embody a particularly powerful form of hope: the rescue fantasy. Not only did we imagine a happier ending for the parable of Marilyn Monroe’s life, but we also fantasized ourselves as saviors who could have brought it about.

Still, women didn’t seem quite as comfortable about going public with their rescue fantasies as men did. It meant admitting an identity with a woman who always had been a little embarrassing, and who had now turned out to be doomed as well. Nearly all of the journalistic eulogies that followed Monroe’s death were written by men. So are almost all of the nearly 40 books that have been published about Monroe.

Bias in the minds of editors played a role, too. Consciously or not, they seemed to assume that only male journalists should write about a sex goddess. Margaret Parton, a reporter from the Ladies’ Home Journal and one of the few women assigned to profile Marilyn during her lifetime, wrote an article that was rejected because it was too favorable. She had reported Marilyn’s ambitious hope of playing Sadie Thompson, under the guidance of Lee Strasberg, in a television version of RAIN, based on a short story by Somerset Maugham. (Sadie Thompson was “a girl who knew how to be gay, even when she was sad,” a fragile Marilyn had explained, “and that’s important – you know?”) Parton also reported her own “sense of having met a sick little canary instead of a peacock. Only when you pick it up in your hand to comfort it … beneath the sickness, the weakness and the innocence, you find a strong bone structure, and a heart beating. You RECOGNIZE sickness, and you FIND strength.”

Bruce and Beatrice Gould, editors of the Ladies’ Home Journal, told Parton she must have been “mesmerized” to write something so uncritical. “If you were a man,” Mr. Gould told her, “I’d wonder what went on that afternoon in Marilyn’s apartment.” Fred Guiles, one of Marilyn Monroe’s more fair-minded biographers, counted the suppression of this sensitive article as one proof that many editors were interested in portraying Monroe, at least in those later years, as “crazy, a home wrecker.”

Just after Monroe’s death, one of the few women to write with empathy was Diana Trilling, an author confident enough not to worry about being trivialized by association – and respected enough to get published. Trilling regretted the public’s “mockery of [Marilyn’s] wish to be educated,” and her dependence on sexual artifice that must have left “a great emptiness where a true sexuality would have supplied her with a sense of herself as a person.” She mourned Marilyn’s lack of friends, “especially women, to whose protectiveness her extreme vulnerability spoke so directly.”

“But we were the friends,” as Trilling said sadly, “of whom she knew nothing.”

In fact, the contagion of feminism that followed Monroe’s death by less than a decade may be the newest and most powerful reason for the continuing strength of her legend. As women began to be honest in public, and to discover that many of our experiences were more societal than individual, we also realized that we could benefit more by acting together than by deserting each other. We were less likely to blame or be the victim, whether Marilyn or ourselves, and more likely to rescue ourselves and each other.

In 1972, the tenth anniversary of her death and the birth year of MS., the first magazine to be published by and for women, Harriet Lyons, one of its early editors, suggested that MS. do a cover story on Marilyn called “the woman who died too soon.” As the writer of this brief essay about women’s new hope of reclaiming Marilyn, I was astounded by the response to the article. It was like tapping an underground river of interest. For instance:

Marilyn had talked about being sexually assaulted as a child, though many of her biographers had not believed her. Women wrote in to tell their similar stories. It was my first intimation of what since has become a documented statistic: one in six adult women has been sexually assaulted in childhood by a family member. The long-lasting effects – for instance, feeling one has no value except a sexual one – seemed shared by these women and Marilyn. Yet most were made to feel guilty and alone, and many were as disbelieved by the grown-ups around them as Marilyn had been.

Physicians had been more likely to prescribe sleeping pills and tranquilizers than to look for the cause of Monroe’s sleeplessness and anxiety. They had continued to do so even after she attempted suicide several times. Women responded with their own stories of being over-medicated, and of doctors who assumed women’s physical symptoms were all in their “minds.” It was my first understanding that women are more likely to be given chemical and other arm’s-length treatment, and to suffer from the assumption that they can be chemically calmed or sedated with less penalty because they are doing only “women’s work.” Then, ads in medical journals blatantly recommended tranquilizers for depressed housewives, and even now the majority of all tranquilizer prescriptions are written for women. Acting, modeling, making a living more from external appearance than from internal identity – these had been Marilyn’s lifelines out of poverty and obscurity. Other women who had suppressed their internal selves to become interchangeable “pretty girls” – and as a result were struggling with both lack of identity and terror of aging – wrote to tell their stories.

To gain the seriousness and respect that was largely denied her, and to gain the fatherly protection she had been completely denied, Marilyn married a beloved American folk hero and then a respected intellectual. Other women who had tried to marry for protection or for identity, as women are often encouraged to do, wrote to say how impossible and childlike this had been for them, and how impossible for their husbands who were expected to provide their wives’ identities. But Marilyn did not live long enough to see a time in which women sought their own identities, not just derived ones.

During her marriage to Arthur Miller, Marilyn had tried to have a child – but suffered an ectopic pregnancy, a miscarriage – and could not. Letters poured in from women who also suffered from this inability and from a definition of womanhood so tied to the accident of the physical ability to bear a child – preferably a son, as Marilyn often said, though later she also talked of a daughter – that their whole sense of self had been undermined. “Manhood means many things,” as one reader explained, “but womanhood means only one.” And where is the self-respect of a woman who wants to give birth only to a male child, someone different from herself?

Most of all, women readers mourned that Marilyn had lived in an era when there were so few ways for her to know that these experiences were shared with other women, that she was not alone.

Now women and men bring the last quarter century of change and understanding to these poignant photographs taken in the days just before her death. It makes them all the more haunting. [Editor’s Note: this chapter originally appeared with photographs, which are not present here.]

I still see the self-consciousness with which she posed for a camera. It makes me remember my own teenage discomfort at seeing her on the screen, mincing and whispering and simply hoping her way into love and approval. By holding a mirror to the exaggerated ways in which female human beings are trained to act, she could be as embarrassing – and as sad and revealing – as a female impersonator. Yet now I also see the why of it, and the woman behind the mask that her self-consciousness creates.

I still feel worried about her, just as I did then. There is something especially vulnerable about big-breasted women in this world concerned with such bodies, but unconcerned with the real person within. We may envy these women a little, yet we feel protective of them, too.

But in these photographs, the body emphasis seems more the habit of some former self. It’s her face we look at. Now that we know the end of the story, it’s the real woman we hope to find – looking out of the eyes of Marilyn.

In the last interview before her death, close to the time of these photographs, Patricia Newcomb, her friend and press secretary, remembers that Marilyn pleaded unsuccessfully with the reporter to end his article like this:

What I really want to say: That what the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers. Please don’t make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe.

Published in 1986 and written by Gloria Steinem.

#gloria steinem #marilyn monroe #articles

4 notes · View notes

always-over-analysing-blog · 7 years

Text

Externalising Anxiety

I just came across this essay I wrote a forever ago. I never did anything with it at the time, but, now I have a Tumblr I guess I can post it here (even though no one actually follows me lmao).

No one is immune to anxiety. That voice in your head which unprovoked rears its ugly self on what seemingly was a fine day, only to tell you that you’re not good enough and how everything will go horribly wrong. When not dealt with, the anxiety can grow and take over. You’ll alter your plans and let your actions be determined by self-doubt and insecurity. You’ll let yourself weaken and regress in attempts of ever-building desperation to keep that rotten, vicious, discouraging voice shushed. Meanwhile, your anxiety only strengthens ceaselessly becoming a more prevalent, dark and unruly figure in your life.

I’ve named my anxiety. And, now when I hear her grating voice, I tell her:

“Mabel - shut the f*ck up!”

I learned this technique from Katya; a drag queen famed from RuPaul's Drag Race, where she won the title of ‘Miss Congeniality’ on season 7 and made the top three on the series’ latest All Stars season. Katya (who’s known as Brian when stripped of makeup, padding, fishnets, and wigs) names her anxiety Brenda.

I have suffered from pretty severe GAD and clinical depression all through my tween and teen years. And I’ve tried more than a few meditation and relaxation techniques and positive self-talk tools to battle that ugly voice, all to varying levels of success. However, it was not until trying this method of externalisation that I truly felt able to gain back control.

Giving your anxiety a name allows you to separate its identity from your true self. It's a very real way of distancing you from your mental disorder, allowing you to understand that your anxiety is not equivalent to who you are nor does it define you. I named my anxiety Mabel because it's a funny and unintimidating name. Suddenly, when your anxiety sounds like either the name of a grandmother or of a family pet, it no longer seems as frightening and formidable.

I first became a fan of Katya's on RPDR as I found her unique humour hysterically funny. As the competition progressed, I began to root for her because I related to the way she doubted herself. I wanted to see Katya, who suffered from anxiety in the same way I did, succeed in overcoming her mental health. If she could succeed, it's totally possible I can succeed too.

Admittedly, having a fake-Russian, ex-drug-addict, surreal humorist drag queen as a role model is, on paper, an odd choice for a teenage girl living in rural Scotland. But, I have my reasons. Watching Katya and her zany wit either on TV or her youtube series can sometimes be the only thing which will give me a moment of respite from crappy stuff going on in my life. She's a weird, goofy character who has been able to make me laugh whenever, whatever.

And it's not just her comedy I find inspiring. Katya uses her platform to speak out on important issues. In a series of late night live streams, she has discussed topical matters such as racism, feminism, politics, addiction, and anxiety. She's a passionate, intelligent, well-spoken advocate with a unique perspective who wants to make a positive impact on the world. Not bad for a man in a dress.

Externalising your anxiety is not much different from creating a drag persona. You get to chose their name, characteristics and how much attention you'll give them. You've probably come across the metaphor where you have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Why not try counteracting the discouraging voice of your anxiety with the motivating voice of a fierce queen? I'll pay more credence to a glittery, unshakable, confident diva than I will to Mabel. And the more I consciously disregard the opinion of Mabel, the quieter her voice becomes.

This externalisation technique, for me, works far better than other methods of tackling anxiety have. Perhaps it's simply a technique that I click with. Maybe, because I learned it from someone I admire and not from a clinical, monotonous, counsellor's office pamphlet, I tried a little harder. It could be both these combined. I'm not sure. What I do know, however, is that I've become more self-assured and optimistic. I do still worry a lot, but I'm getting better at recognising when my fears are irrational, and when they are, I know not to allow them to deter me.

Dealing with anxiety will be something I'll likely face for decades to come. It's a process, and it's not going to go away overnight. I had my last panic attack just a week ago, and realistically, I doubt that will be my final one. Mabel will always be trash-talking in my ear, and there are going to be times when I'll give in and listen.

Over the past two years, I've seen Katya blossom from someone who was insecure into someone who believes in herself. Not only does she now take advantage of opportunities when they come her way, she'll also use her ingenuity to create her own opportunities. I can't say I'm this courageous yet, but reaching that level of spirit no longer seems an impossibility. If Katya can do it, so can I.

#anxiety #gad #katya #katya zamolodchikova #depression

2 notes · View notes

lyndsey-parker · 6 years

Text

Girlschool’s Anna Bullbrook and Shirley Manson: ‘Women are roaring back in a massive way’

Shirley Manson and Anna Bullbrook at Girlschool 2017. (Photo: Facebook)

As the third annual Girlschool festival takes place in Los Angeles this weekend, its voices – which this year include Garbage’s Shirley Manson with the Girlschool Choir, Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein in conversation with poet Morgan Parker, Pussy Riot-affiliated rapper Desi Mo, and the Dum Dum Girls’ Kristin Kontrol — are needed now more than ever. Following a disappointing Grammys, at which few women won any actual awards and Recording Academy president Neil Portnow controversially placed the blame on female artists, telling women they need to “step up” — Girlschool provides a sense of community “for women that don’t get the opportunity to be heard on mainstream media outlets and platforms,” Manson tells Yahoo Entertainment. “You don’t hear these voices very much at all in our culture currently. That’s what I think’s so magical about Girlschool.”

The Girlschool artistic collective was founded by Anna Bullbrook of the Airborne Toxic Event (a classically trained violinist who’s also played with Kanye West, Beyoncé, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and Vampire Weekend) to “celebrate, connect, and lift women-identified artists, leaders, and voices.” Speaking with Yahoo about of this year’s event in a candid roundtable with Manson (who was last year’s Girlschool keynote speaker), the conversation gets heavy at times, but Bullbrook can’t suppress her giddy excitement over this year’s Girlschool lineup. “It’s going to be unmissable, and if you miss it, you will probably have FOMO for the rest of your life,” she enthuses. “Everybody deserves a chance to be heard, but also everybody’s so good, you’re going to want to hear them.”

Read on for Bullbrook and Manson’s thoughts on gender equality and inclusivity in music, the #TimesUp movement, why the progress women made in the ‘90s frustratingly stalled, their hopes for the future, and the power of “positive discrimination.”

Yahoo Entertainment: Shirley, how did you come to be a part of Girlschool?

Shirley Manson: I just really admired what Anna was doing, and I felt it was really vital what she was doing at that particular time. As time has unfolded since we connected, I couldn’t be more right. The need for the kind of advocacy that Anna’s doing is more vital than ever. I was really inspired when I met her, and I’ve stalked her on social media ever since, and been blown away by how much she actually does. We’re all guilty of talking a lot, just saying, “I’m supporting and doing this and doing that,” but Anna has been able to do things for other people, and I really respect that.

Yahoo Entertainment: Anna, why did you decide to start Girlschool? Did your own experience as a musician in a male-dominated field make you want to take action?

Anna Bullbrook: Yes. I think especially in the wake of this [USC] study [about the lack of representation of women in music] that was just released this week, we’ve all seen the statistics, which very much confirm my experience — our experiences as the female members of the bands that we’ve been in, and coming from the rock space. It’s a very lonely position to be in. … It wasn’t until probably eight years that I started to really notice and miss the company of other women. I had this perspective shifting experience with Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls L.A. I was a speaker, and it was the first time I’ve ever been in a space that was 100 percent women-identified people coming together in an intentionally positive way around making music. I’d never had that experience. After that experience, I was so hungry for more of that. I couldn’t unsee what I had seen, and I couldn’t exist without it going forward.

I’m actually really excited that we actually have hard data now that we can point to and say, “This is a problem, look. We’re not just making it up. There really is this incredible disparity.” What would music sound like if it were more inclusive? What would happen if all the incredible women producers that I know were actually given a chance to make a record, or someone would take a chance on them with a budget? What would happen if songwriters were women too? What would music sound like? It’s very exciting to have truth and have facts that we can look at, that we can actually assess where we are, then keep working towards a beautiful, brighter future — look back at the numbers and see if you’ve measurably moved the needle.

Manson: Statistics are really depressing. We all know that that’s not because women aren’t great musicians. There’s something amiss here. I guess we’re all trying to struggle to figure out why this is the case, whether it’s that women don’t have the confidence necessarily to push themselves into the spotlight, or whether they’ve not been given the chance to stand in the spotlight. I think there are multiple reasons why women are not engaged in music in the same way as their male counterparts. That has to change, and I think what Anna is doing, it’s positively trying to change how women view themselves and to give them this confidence and joy — the joy that you get from playing music.

Yahoo Entertainment: The ’90s, an era when Garbage came to prominence, is a decade I look back on fondly. At that time, it seemed like the issues we’re discussing now we’re in the process of being erased. So many bands that I like were coed, or all women bands, or female-fronted. Lilith Fair, Alanis Morissette, Riot Grrl, Courtney Love, the Breeders, Liz Phair – the list goes on. Then I feel like everything regressed, or it stopped. Do you have any thoughts as to why that progress didn’t continue?

Manson: I’ve been saying this for years now. I think when Sept. 11 occurred, it not only was a horrendous tragedy, but it affected the culture and it affected American radio programming. All of a sudden everybody in the world felt really unsafe in ways that we had never ever felt before. As a result, humanity gets conservative. When humanity feels under attack, when it feels threatened, it gets conservative, and nobody wants a woman with opinions, or an aggressive woman, or a powerful woman, at times when white men are feeling under threat. It’s oversimplifying it to put it like that, but I do essentially believe that that is what was at play. Like you say, everything was on this amazing trajectory, and then all of a sudden it was like the car turned around and headed back down the road. It’s never changed direction since. It’s really rather frightening and really disheartening because when we emerged in the ’90s, it really felt like women were piercing through the glass ceiling. In some ways we definitely were, but unfortunately, that change has not continued.

You mentioned Lilith Fair. I didn’t want to participate in Lilith Fair. By the time we were invited to go on that tour, I didn’t want to do a fully female-oriented festival. It was against everything I believed in. But now I feel like it’s necessary for me to put my weight behind women’s interests. I feel like that because the times have changed. The climate’s different, and I think it’s a matter of urgency for women to galvanize.

Yahoo Entertainment: That is an interesting point, actually, because there is a mindset that sometime doing things that are solely all about being women, whether it’s Lilith Fair or the She Rocks Awards, or even Girlschool, it’s making women be “other,” putting them off in a little side category.

Bullbrook: Actually, Shirley and I were talking about this. As two women in bands that have had some levels of success, we don’t have that many peers. I would say just from my experience being out there in the professional landscape, life got very lonely. So just the experience of seeing so many women-identified people as artists, technical people, and speakers in one place, it’s so exciting. I think that is the intention behind a lot of girls’ groups: When there’s a lot of really amazing people together who feel some kind of kinship with each other, that feeling of community feels very enriching. And I think if you do it in a way that is inclusive and includes everybody on the gender spectrum — and that includes men — then you’re creating something really beautiful, exciting, and positive. It involves the whole community. I do agree that if you completely separate yourself, it’s not as effective as it could be.

Manson: I think when I was younger, I guess I didn’t believe in “positive discrimination,” and now as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized we will never break the mold and the old patriarchy unless we do recognize that women of all colors are not as privileged as men of all colors. There has to be some way that we break that. A lot of people point at positive discrimination and say, ‘This isn’t cool.” I was guilty of that myself when I was younger. But the political climate is such and the actual statistics are such that I really feel that positive discrimination is the only way we will actually change the course.

Bullbrook: I tend to think this about feminism in general, but I think it has to be inclusive and representative across the board: color, identity, religion, ability. I feel like it’s really incredibly important to make sure that if we want to move forward we do it together, and we do it from a very intentional and considered way. I feel like any effort which just is one group of people, one type of woman, so to speak, misses the point entirely.

Yahoo Entertainment: At Girlschool last year, there was a panel discussion about sexual harassment in the music business. This was well before harassment became the topic of national discussion that is now.

Bullbrook: I think these things go in cycles in the media. I am heartened to see so many people engaging with it, and I hope that in the process of building a big cultural moment actually results in people teaching our children how to be better people, people teaching their children about equality, people teaching their children about consent and what it means to be a good person, no matter what your gender is. I really hope that we see some change from this, but I think to be a woman in the world is to engage with the constant fear of sexual harassment and the fear of sexual assault. … I would love to see a world that feels like Girlschool, where when you’re there, you actually don’t have to worry about that for a little while.

Yahoo Entertainment: Sometimes I do worry that #MeToo and #TimesUp will be seen as some “hot new trend” — meaning, in the media will get tired of reporting about it, or people will be tired of reading about it, just because there’s been such a media saturation for the last six months or so. I almost fear people will fatigue of these stories and then not take them seriously anymore.

Manson: I feel a little concerned too, that people’s ears just start to shut down and get bored and move onto another topic. But I do agree with Anna. I feel like the conversation is being had and it is a really significant cultural moment, and it’s on everybody’s lips. I think that will affect a generation of men and women — or everyone on the spectrum, let’s say. I think it’s never going to change people who have serious sexual problems. There’s always going to be predators out there, and they will prey on anyone. No amount of discussion and no amount of analysis will ever change that; some people are sick in the head, and that’s just how it goes. But I do think it will give pause to the average [man of] power and privilege that thinks he can just take what he wants, when he wants, without consequence. I do think that’s one of the greatest things that we’ll take from this moment in time.

Above all things, we must encourage people to speak out, and continue to speak out. It’s about using your voice. If you don’t use your voice, you’re eradicated by history. That’s just how it’s always been. You must be a witness to your own experience. And at this time when we’re all so busy broadcasting, we really all need to stop and listen, and actually pay attention, and see, and hear, and try, and reeducate our children. A lot of it’s about education. It’s about teaching people what is right and what is wrong, what’s appropriate and what’s not.

Yahoo Entertainment: Do either of you have any stories about how you’ve been discriminated against, or just in general treated differently, poorly, because of your gender?

Bullbrook: Well, I think the insidious thing about bias is sometimes it’s hard to see it. I think it’s hard to even know when it’s happening to you, because we’re all biased. The sad thing is, everybody is biased against women — including other women. We might just look at two people, two different candidates for something, and think one is just worse for some reason. We don’t know why, but one happens to be the woman-identified candidate. It blew my mind when I actually started understanding the idea of bias and looked around. I started to see it everywhere — in myself, in others, in experiences I’ve had. I look backwards with a whole new pair of glasses and can see all of these colors I’ve never seen before.

I’ve had those very obvious experiences where the label executive suggested I wear a see-through skirt in New York City for a photo shoot. This was the head of the label who holds the purse-strings for the marketing budget. Some members of my band were like, “Don’t do that. You’re going to be uncomfortable.” I was like, “Really? You want me to show my butt?” Some of that stuff happens, but I feel like more often than not, because I was with really good people, the way it plays out is much more subtle and hard to notice, unless you actually open your eyes to it. I know Shirley’s had some other experiences.

Manson: I feel like it happens to women every day, in really subtle ways. As Anna said so rightly, often you can be slow yourself to detect it, to have a clarity about what has happened. You’re not always aware of that when all the male record execs are commenting on your hairstyle. It’s only a few years later that I’m thinking, “What the f***? What’s my hair got to do with you? You wouldn’t be talking about a male artist in this way!” I was an object. I was too young, and too naïve, and too vain to really detect it at the time, but now looking back, I’m like, “That was just ridiculous.” More than that, I think in business I have just been completely ignored a lot of the time by male lawyers, and managers, and business managers. Everything’s directed towards my male counterparts. They would talk to me maybe about what shoes I wanted to wear. It continues to this day.

Yahoo Entertainment: How did you handle that, especially when you were first starting out?

Manson: I’m very aware that during the very first part of my career, I played submissive dog all the time. I wouldn’t come into a work situation and say, “This hi-hat doesn’t sound good to me.” I would fudge the margins and deliberately dumb myself down, use simple language and try not to be threatening. I would never take ownership over any directive. I knew that if I didn’t act like a submissive dog, I wouldn’t get what I wanted. Men don’t have to do that; women continue to have to do that often. You’ll see it in a lot of female execs. They’re very fun, and energetic. I feel that that’s methodology to get what they want, but men can be as grumpy and unpleasant as they wish and nobody has a word to say about it. If a woman acts that way, she’s a c***, literally. She’s a “bossy c***.”

Yahoo Entertainment: It’s interesting to talk about this stuff, because recent onslaught of media headlines is definitely more focused on the crazy, shocking, violent stories. But these stories you’re telling now are also important. I think it’s important to talk about how incidents that maybe don’t seem nearly as dramatic, or traumatic, also take their toll.

Bullbrook: I’m hoping that Girlschool can create a really warm, engaging, and high-quality story around this incredible talent and create enough of a conduit so that we can start catapulting more artists who are already here. The industry is full of talented women who are working in the music space in some capacity. Let’s start pushing them into opportunities out in the mainstream, and let’s start pushing them and giving them the experience they need to go get a paying job. Let’s create jobs for them, so then they have the experience at a high level where someone finds them undeniable. If you can create this positive and action-oriented space, it’s also just really fun to be a part of. I’m hopeful about where we can go with things in the future. This is really positive for all of us who are involved in it.

Yahoo Entertainment: I love the idea of community, because you touched on something interesting: women sometimes being biased against other women. I think that is such a shame.

Bullbrook: I feel like, yes, there’s bias, but it is a myth that women don’t support each other. I think when given the opportunity, we do. It’s magic, it’s incredible. I can’t feel anything other than hopeful, because of what I see every day in my personal experience and work. I see too many good things that happen when women come together to believe that we’re not supportive of each other.

Manson: Well, I have to disagree and agree. I’ve been on the receiving end of both situations. I’ve enjoyed phenomenal support from incredible women, and I’ve also seen the panicked, fearful, defensive approach by a lot of other female artists who never, ever seem interested in supporting or speaking out on behalf of another female artist. I think ultimately it speaks of the way our culture is, which is all based on fear of lack of opportunity. For women in general who are getting less opportunity than their white male counterparts, I think they feel if one woman flourishes, automatically all the other women in the room don’t. Of course, I don’t believe that’s the case at all, and until women really support the women they see flourishing, we’ll never change the lack of opportunities. Similarly, white women have to get the backs of their black sisters and women of color. We all have to start recognizing how can we break down the system that we are currently oppressed under. These are big words and it sounds dramatic — but I think it is quite dramatic, really.

I think, again, it goes back to education. We need to educate our children differently. We’re still teaching them that girls do housework and boys get to run out and get dirty in the yard. It’s just crazy that these stereotypes still exist. We have yet to really break that down. I just feel like boys are encouraged to take up room, and girls are encouraged to make themselves small. Boys are encouraged to be loud and boisterous; girls are supposed to be ladylike and quiet. I think all these things are what lead to these weird imbalances in our culture, and it has to change. This is not good for anyone. Yes, particularly in the arts, you’ll find pockets of incredibly supportive women collectives and movements, but out in the world at large I don’t see a lot of support from women for other women. I see a lot of bitchiness, criticism, judgments, and snickering behind girls’ backs. I don’t know, that’s just my perception of the world. I’ve worked with men a lot in my career, and men are much more forgiving to themselves and to each other. Women are really unforgiving of themselves and each other. These are sweeping statements, and it’s not by any means a rule of thumb, but that’s what I’ve witnessed in my life.

Yahoo Entertainment: How do you see what’s going on musically now — especially as it pertains to women-identified artists –reflecting what’s going on politically, culturally? And where is that going?

Bullbrook: I’m just so deep in this festival coming up, and I’m just excited about what we have around us. I’m enthralled with how much different talent there is. I’m excited to see what happens when we get all those different people together under one roof, bringing different audiences together. I feel what’s happening, especially with people ages 15 to 25 these days, around gender and unboxing these gender types and creating a bit more freedom within everything. I feel so hopeful. I know that history and statistics show that maybe I shouldn’t be hopeful, because it’s really hard to make a change, but I have to believe in a better future — because if I didn’t, what would I work towards?

Manson: I also feel really optimistic, and I feel that there’s a whole new wave of really provocative, smart, informed women making music that’s much more rebellious/provocative than the last 20, 15 years. I feel like there’s a real upswell from women who have something to say, who are not interested in putting on a leotard and singing pop music. Now, that is a huge shift, because certainly 10 years ago, that’s all you saw: girls wanting to be pretty. They were all wearing long nails painted glamorously, they were all very ladylike, and they were all singing pop songs either about having a great time in a club, falling in love, having their hearts broken, or being forever young. Things have definitely shifted.

I feel like we have had 20 years of forceful women being pushed back, now the women are roaring back in a massive way. And I do feel that that will then, again, push women’s rights and women’s fortunes forward. Let’s face it, I have a better life than my mum did. My mum didn’t get to choose what she did for a living. My mum basically would keep house, and get a f***ing allowance from my father. I grew up in a very conservative household, and my granny also didn’t have freedom. And neither did her mother before her. I do believe in the concept of evolution really strongly. When I talk to young women now, they’re way smarter than I ever was. So, I just have to believe that the next generation are going to continue that. Human nature is going to continue to evolve, and everything’s going to be OK in the end.

Girlschool takes place Feb. 2-4 at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. Click here for tickets and the full lineup.

#_category:yct:001000080 #_uuid:728cd0c5-db10-32a4-ada4-c18bcfe84fc2 #girlschool #garbage #_author:Lyndsey Parker #shirley manson #_revsp:wp.yahoo.music.us #_lmsid:a0Vd000000AE7lXEAT #interviews

0 notes