Influence of the Riot Grrrl Movement on Punk

Riot Grrrl’s Impacts on the Content of 90s Punk Songs
by Aubree Keurajian

Punk rock is strongly associated with criticizing the government and the dominant social structure. For this reason one may anticipate that criticism of the patriarchal tendencies of society would be a theme present in punk culture, however this assumption does not necessarily hold. While the punk rock scene is based in large part on ideas of social justice and equality, by the 1990s, many aspects mainstream society had wept in and the gender hierarchies found in mainstream culture had mirrored themselves within the subculture. Thus despite being a place where women could rebel against the traditional feminine roles that society dictated they fill, the punk scene still placed them in a subordinate position. This gender inequality within a structure purporting equality, combined with critiques of society as a whole helped create the Riot Grrrl movement as a strong feminist force to speak out against these inequalities. The Riot Grrrl movement arose out of a combination of feminist ideas and punk rock aesthetics, but also provided a point of comradeship for women and girls in the punk rock movement itself.  I will examine the impacts of Riot Grrrl as a strong feminist voice within the punk community on the lyrical content of male bands in the concurrent punk revival.

Punk rock arose as a reaction to mainstream, commercialized rock and sought to rebel against all of the traditional expectations of rock music, one of these being the almost universal male dominance. At its inception, punk’s “do it yourself” quality allowed, and even encouraged, people who did not fit the typical white, male rocker mold to take part in the music, creating a space for female musicians to partake (Dunn and Farnsworth, 2012).  This can be seen in the popularity of mixed gender groups like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Blondie, and X-Ray Spex (Oxford Music Online, “Punk”, 2013). In addition to the presence of women, the early punk scene also was mixed in terms of race, as can be easily seen in the Los Angeles area through groups like The Bags, which were neither all male nor all white (Bag, 2012). The early British punk scene provided a platform for women to speak out on issues of sexism and gender inequality, and through this helped to create much of the punk aesthetic, as can be seen through figures like designer Vivienne Westwood (Downes, 2012). Unfortunately, this gender and racial equality in the punk rock scene was relatively short lived, and as entirely male, white bands became more dominant the scene it became more aggressive and masculine, causing an exclusion of women and minorities. Women involved in punk rock at this time found that it quickly changed from a relatively open community to one that posed a threat of violence to them and in which they no longer were an accepted part (Dunn and Farnsworth, 2012).  Part of this masculinization was due to the strong ties with the working class that put issues of class and political struggles against gender inequality (Cranny-Francis and Waring, 2003). While punk did not become necessarily anti-women, it did become a rough and sometimes aggressive scene in which femininity was discouraged and masculinity celebrated.

            Just as in society as a whole, gender roles in punk rock are constructed through performative acts and informed by visual representations especially through the media. For this reason, an understanding of how people create and maintain their genders through their actions as well as how the media and society influences the gendered acts that people perform is necessary for an understanding of how these processes operate within the punk subcultures and how they created the need for the Riot Grrrl movement. As early as the start of the western first wave of feminism, theorists such as Mary Wollstonecraft recognized that society creates nonessential gender constructions that girls and boys are expected to uphold through physical objects and actions dictated to be more suited to one gender or the other (Wollstonecraft, 2002). This goes along with Judith Butler’s phenomenological theories on gender construction in which she defines gender as a social construction created by repetition of gendered acts in accordance to a sociocultural setting that varies greatly over time (Butler, 1988). She also argues that culture is reliant on gender in order to function in the way that people have been conditioned to expect. While each act that a person performs is an individual choice, they are dictated by the larger structures of society and help to reinforce this society (Oxford Music Online, “Punk”), creating a positive feedback loop. This lens of critique of gender is most often focused on mainstream society, but the same processes are at work in subcultures as well and very clearly in punk rock.

            As Cranny-Francis and Waring describe in their paper on gender and fashion, gender is defined in large part by fashion and styles, and society relies on these cues to separate people out along a binary division of gender (Cranny-Francis & Waring, 2003). This construction of gender through clothing, hair, and makeup is clearly a defining characteristic of gender constructions in mainstream society, but it also holds very true in the punk culture as well. While the punk culture can be seen as, in part, a rejection of the consumerist, capitalist society that beauty culture is a part of, manners of dress and hairstyle are very important parts of punk culture. In Lauraine LeBlanc’s book on girls and women in the punk community she describes a contradiction that punk culture simultaneously creates a way for females to rebel against the mainstream constructions of femininity while replacing them with other constructions of femininity. Women within the punk rock scene face the challenge of adhering to the masculine aesthetic of punk rock, by using elements such as combat boots, shaved heads, and leather jackets, while still portraying that they are female, either through the inclusion of traditionally feminine elements like makeup, skirts, or fishnets, or by acting in a gentle, “girly” way. As one of the interviewees in LeBlanc’s research, Carina, put it, “I’ll do little things, just to make sure they know I’m a girl.” (Leblanc, 1999) This quotation shows that, despite the punk scene’s rejection of typical modes of femininity, there are still defined female roles that women are expected to fill.

            The Riot Grrrl movement arose in the early 1990s in response to both the strongly masculine tone that the punk rock scene had taken on as well as the issues of sexism that women and girls faced in the world at large (Cranny-Francis & Waring, 2003).  Reclaiming the word “girl” from its negative connotations, Riot Grrrl encouraged women and girls to take part in feminist activism using the same techniques as the punk movement, that is, through independent music and zines (Garrison, 2000). By creating an accessible place for women to aggressively organize for equal treatment and rights, the Riot Grrrl movement helped bring women’s issues to the attention of society as a whole. While the Riot Grrrl movement was predominately white, it strived to combat issues that dealt with race in addition to gender, consumerism, and heteronormativity (Leblanc, 1999). The movement grew in scope and popularity, becoming a major social force in the mid-1990s, gaining publicity in many national news outlets in addition to increasing the distribution of materials on how to make zines to a larger demographic in order to foster the growth of a feminist underground press (Cranny-Francis & Waring, 2003). Riot Grrrl bands and Riot Grrrl inspired songs also came onto the national scene in the music charts, with songs like No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” reaching number 23 on the Billboard charts and an album by Sleater-Kinney peaking at number 15 on the indie charts (Academic Charts Online).

            In order to analyze the effects of the Riot Grrrl movement on the treatment of women in the lyrics of male punk rock bands I examined three bands that were influential in the punk rock revival scene of the 1990s and are comprised entirely of male musicians, Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, and Rancid. I analyzed the lyrics beginning with bands’ first albums and stopping with albums that were published prior to 2005. In my analysis of the lyrics I looked for three things. 1.) Any mention of issues typically considered “women’s issues” such as feminism in general, reproductive rights, and sexual assault, 2.) any mention of an individual women as a character in the song, or 3.) the use of female pronouns or generic female terms such as “daughter”,  “mother”, or “girl”. I used the lyrics as published on www.azlyrics.com because this website has a complete listing of all of the songs released by all of these bands and thus a level of consistency is ensured. While the lyrics on this site are written and edited by contributors in a similar way to Wikipedia, the level of accuracy is usually quite high. I chose 2005 as an end date because the Riot Grrrl movement peaked in the mid-1990s thus by 2005 its ideology was well known and most of its effects had been felt. Additionally, this date is a logical breaking point for all three of the bands discussed for various reasons that will be discussed below.

            Anti-Flag is a very political punk band formed in Pittsburg, PA in 1993. While the band had a small prelude in 1988 with female vocalist Lucy Fester, this iteration of the band failed almost instantly. When it reformed in 1993, the band was entirely male, and while the membership changed slightly over the next six years, this trend continued. From their creation in 1993 up until 2005 they were signed on various independent record labels, including one of their own creation, A-F Records. In 2005 they signed to RCA, signaling a change from the DIY punk aesthetic that they were known for, and this change can be easily heard in their music, supporting the use of 2005 as an end date (Encyclopedia of Popular Music, “Anti-Flag”). Of the three bands I examined, Anti-Flag is by far the most political. Most of their songs focus on the United States government, especially war and military action as well as personal freedom. Their musical style is very characteristic of punk revival bands; loud, fast, and simple both in lyrics and melody.

            In addition to Anti-Flag, I looked at one of the biggest bands of the 90s post-punk revival, Bad Religion. By far the most well-known of the three, Bad Religion was formed in 1980 in Los Angeles, CA, prior to both the Riot Grrrl movement and the punk revival. While the band faced many lineup changes, all of its members have been male. Much like Anti-Flag, they released albums on their own label, Epitaph, which, unlike A-F Records, grew beyond them. Bad Religion also signed to a major label, but this does not appear to have changed their music in any substantial way (EPM, “Bad Religion”). Unlike Anti-Flag, Bad Religion focused more on politics and social issues, such as consumerism and religion. Bad Religion did not release any albums between 2004 and 2007, and as such the year 2005 is a logical break point for analysis of their music.

            Rancid is the least political of the three bands I analyzed, but they still have strong themes of social commentary. Formed in 1989 in Oakland, CA and signed to Bad Religion’s Epitaph Records, Rancid focused primarily on social issues, leaving behind much of the political focus of other punk revival bands. Unlike the other two bands discussed, Rancid had strong ties with the third-wave ska scene that ran concurrent to the punk revival, which may be responsible for the less political nature of their music (EPM, “Rancid”). Similar to Bad Religion, Rancid took a break in producing albums, although slightly longer, lasting from 2003-2009. This break, however, leaves 2005 again as a logical upper limit for analysis.

            Through my reading of these bands’ lyrics, I have found four distinct categories of references about women. The first of these are women portrayed as vague family members in such a way as to symbolize larger sections of society; I have termed this category “symbolic kin” and have found that examples tend to fall into two categories, the first being “mothers” in which maternal imagery is used as a stand in for authority figures, and the second being relatively un-gendered uses of terms like “brothers and sisters” in a way that implies comradeship. The songs in this category primarily came from Bad Religion, so this may have more to do with that individual band than punk rock revival bands in general. The second category of songs is those that use female characters alongside male characters in an anecdotal lyrical format. Representations of women in this way tend to portray them in ways that are not gender specific. The next category is the use of women in stereotypical roles as descriptors of the type of society or setting that is being created in the song. While these representations of women tend to cast women in traditional, subordinate ways, they are more a commentary on the place of women within those societies than the way the band itself actually views women. The fourth category is songs that deal directly with women’s issues. Due to space constraints I can only give a few examples of each type, but in the appendix is a list of songs by these groups that mention women and the way in which women are mentioned.

            Not all of the songs released by these bands portray women in a non-sexist light, but the songs that lyrically treat women poorly are not connected by any sort of overriding category and thus seem somewhat individual. There is a minor theme of jilted lovers speaking poorly of their former loves, as can be seen in Dope Sick, Girl by Rancid, which portrays a woman’s insecurity as attractive, and Anti-Flag’s Drink, Drank, Punk which talks about the regret of a one night stand with a woman who turned out to be unattractive. All of the songs that treat women with varying degrees of sexism have to do with relationships and as such are speaking about individual women and not women as a group or portraying them as characters in a society. One variation from this trend is the Bad Religion song Evangeline, a love song about a punk rock girl that shows her as a strong individual.

            Punk rock is the music of the rebellious teen, fighting against the controlling forces of society, an image easily represented through parents. While a parent of either gender could be used to represent society equally well, the mother is overwhelmingly the preferred choice. As a symbol of society, the mother is treated as a personification of society’s attempts to homogenize and control individuals in one of two ways, either through an actual controlling force or as person who has been completely controlled by society. The first of these can be seen in Rancid’s song The Wars End which contains the line: “Little Sammy was a punk rocker//you know his mother never understood him” and the second in the Bad Religion song 21^st Century Digital Boy which attacks both parents as complacent products of modern society in the lyrics “Daddy’s a lazy middle class intellectual//Mommy’s on valium, so ineffectual”. Parents are also used as a stand in for society as something to be impressed, which the punk rock children inevitably fail at doing because of their failure to adhere to expected societal norms. This is exemplified in the Bad Religion song Incomplete, which begins with “Mother, Father, look at your little monster, //I’m a hero, I’m a zero, // I’m the butt of the worst joke in history”.  

Another form of symbolic kinship is seen in the use of phrases like “brothers and sisters” and “sons and daughters” to highlight a universal comradeship between people facing the same struggles, regardless of gender. This lyrical structure tends to treat both genders in the same way, as is seen in the Anti-Flag songs No Borders, No Nations which contains the lyrics “A government run by the corporations of the world//Enslaving mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters” and A New Kind of Army, which says “We’re looking for a few good men//We’re looking for a few good womyn”. This quotation from A New Kind of Army shows Anti-Flag’s consciousness of feminism through their adoption of the alternate spelling of “woman” as “womyn”; this is seen any time they use that word from 1998 onward. Gender equal comradeship is by far one of the dominant ways in which women are referred to in the songs that I examined, and it shows an underlying belief in equality between genders in the collective psyche of punk rock.

            The next category is of women as characters in a lyrical form common to many genres, including punk rock, that I will call the “anecdote”. In the anecdote format, short vignettes are told about multiple characters in order to tell a story, often of the effects of something or to create an image of a part of society. This is exemplified in the Bad Religion song You Don’t Belong, which uses this technique to describe the misfit youths to whom the song is dedicated. This song is also interesting in its causal mention of gender-deviant ways of performing gender. “Jack wore a skirt but he knew how to scrap//Billy went to county on a class one possession//Wendy went to school while her daddy shot smack//Eugene kept a list//Mugger was security//Mary she kept her purity//We were all in it together”. In one stanza of Rancid’s song Rats in the Hallway a heroin addict named Mya accosts the narrator, but in the next stanza it is the junkie Johnny whose addiction adds to the derelict setting of the apartment complex. These songs use descriptions of characters in an anecdotal way to describe a setting, but do so in such a way that does not rely on traditional gender roles. A third category of representations of women does exactly the opposite and is for that reason the most potentially problematic.

            Punk rock songs often create exaggerated settings to illuminate social ills or ironies, and one way in which they manage this is through the use of stereotypical female characters. At first listen these songs appear to be reinforcing stereotyped gender roles and treating women in sexist ways, but upon further examination it becomes clear that these images of women are not intended to be a comment on how women ought to be treated but rather on the roles that various types of society force them into. This is clear in Rancid’s song Hoover Street, which opens with a description of an immigrant prostitute to set the scene of the ghetto described by the song. The use of female characters in this way shows an acknowledgement of the unique ways in which other struggles, such as class, race, and consumerism, affect women and how the women shaped by these struggles then affect their communities.

            The final category of songs dealing with women are those dealing directly with “women’s issues”, especially abortion and women in the media. It is interesting to note that in my analysis I came across no songs that spoke negatively of feminist activism. Bad Religion and Anti-Flag both have released songs against restrictions on abortions, Don’t Pray on Me and No Apology respectively. From No Apology, “Making it illegal won't make it go away//the rich will fly to far off lands, the poor will stay and pray//that their back alley abortion is clean and safe//you can't make it go away,//so why endanger womyn's lives?” Additionally, all three bands have songs that attack the media’s unrealistic and damaging portrayals of women. Rancid’s Antennas begins with the blunt line “You’re selling sexism, you’re selling racism”, while Anti-Flag’s You’ll Scream Tonight describes how advertising utilizes over-sexualized women to sell products. While these songs are a definite minority, the fact that all male groups chose to tackle these issues when they could have just as easily dismissed them show that the feminist agenda of the Riot Grrrl movement may have had an impact on the subject matter that these bands chose to focus on.

            In conclusion, the Riot Grrrl movement’s combination of punk rock culture with feminist beliefs created a powerful subculture that impacted the lyrical content of popular male bands of the 1990s. While there is no evidence of direct influence or collaboration between women involved in the Riot Grrrl movement and the male bands of the punk revival that I examined, that these two movements occurred simultaneously within the same genre of music indicates that they were influenced by each other. The relatively equal treatment of women in the lyrics of these bands, as well as the fact that even the least political of the three examined has a song about women’s issues, shows that these bands were cognizant of feminism and operated in such a way as not to aggressively uphold masculine dominance.

Works Cited

Bag, Alice. “Work that Hoe: Tilling the Soil of Punk Feminism.” Women & Performance: a

Journal of Feminist Theory. 22.2-3 (2012):233-238. ProQuest. Web. 21 Nov. 2013.

Butler, Judith. 1988. Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal 40(4): 519-531.

Cranny-Francis, Anne and Wendy E. Waring. 2003. Femininity, Masculinity, and Fashion. Gender Studies: Terms and Debates. Palgrave MacMillan. 197-205.

Downes, Julia. “The Expansion of Punk Rock: Riot Grrrl Challenges to Gender Power Relations in British Indie Music Subcultures.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 41.2 (2012):204-237. Literary Reference Center. Web. 21 Nov,  2013.

Dunn, Kevin, and May Summer Farnsworth. “‘We ARE the Revolution’: Riot Grrrl Press, Girl Empowerment, and DIY Self-Publishing.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 41.2 (2012): 136-157. Literary Reference Center. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.

Garrison, Ednie Kaeh. "U.S. Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub)Cultures and the Technologics of the Third Wave." Feminist Studies 26.1 (2000): 141-70. ProQuest. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.

Leblanc, Lauraine. Pretty in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance In A Boys’ Subculture. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers, University Press, 1999. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 19 Nov. 2013.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. 2002. Excerpt from “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” An Introduction to Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World. I. Grewal and C. Kaplan, Eds. McGraw Hill. 170-172.

Other Sources:

"Anti-Flag." Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Ed. Colin Larkin. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/74476>.

"Bad Religion." Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Ed. Colin Larkin. Oxford Music Online.Oxford University Press. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/36240>.

"Punk." Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Ed. Colin Larkin. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/52163>.

"Rancid." Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Ed. Colin Larkin. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.<http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/62752>.

Songs Referenced:

Anti-Flag. "Angry, Young, and Poor." Underground Network. By Justin Sane. Fat Wreck Chords, San Francisco, 2001.

Anti-Flag. "Anti-Violent." North America Sucks!!. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996.

Anti-Flag. "Betty Sue is Dead." Their System Doesn't Work For You. By Justin Sane. A-F Records, Pittsburg, 1998. 

Anti-Flag. "Born to Die." North America Sucks!!. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996.

Anti-Flag. "Confused Youth." Die for the Government. By Justin Sane. New Red Archives, San Francisco, 1996.

Anti-Flag. "Drink Drank Punk." Die for the Government. By Justin Sane. New Red Archives, San Francisco, 1996.

Anti-Flag. "Gifts from America; With Love, The U.S.A." BYO Split Series Volume IV. By Justin Sane. BYO Records, Los Angeles, 2002. 

Anti-Flag. "I'm Having a Good Day." North America Sucks!!. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996. 

Anti-Flag. "Mind the G.A.T.T." The Terror State. By Justin Sane. Fat Wreck Chords, San Francisco, 2003.                                                                                                                                               

Anti-Flag. "No Apology." A New Kind of Army. By Justin Sane. Go-Kart Records, New York, 1999.

Anti-Flag. "No Borders, No Nations." BYO Split Series Volume IV. By Justin Sane. BYO Records, Los Angeles, 2002. 

Anti-Flag. "Power to the Peaceful." The Terror State. By Justin Sane. Fat Wreck Chords, San Francisco, 2003. 

Anti-Flag. "Right to Choose." Mobilize. By Justin Sane. A-F Records, Pittsburg, 2002. 

Anti-Flag. "Spaz's House Destruction Party [Live]." Mobilize. By Justin Sane. A-F Records, Pittsburg, 2002. 

Anti-Flag. "Summer Squatter Go Home." Die for the Government. By Justin Sane. New Red Archives, San Francisco, 1996. 

Anti-Flag. "You'll Scream Tonight." North America Sucks!!. By Justin Sane. Nefer Records, Vancouver, 1996. 

Bad Religion. "American Jesus." Recipe for Hate. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.

Bad Religion. "Anesthesia." Against the Grain. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1990.

Bad Religion. "Boot Stamping on a Human Face Forever." The Empire Strikes First. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2004.

Bad Religion. "Broken." The Process of Belief. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.

Bad Religion. "Cease." The Gray Race. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996. 

Bad Religion. "Chasing the Wild Goose." Into the Unknown. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1983. 

Bad Religion. "The Defense." The Process of Belief. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002. 

Bad Religion. "Doin' Time." How Could Hell Be Any Worse?. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1982.

Bad Religion. "Don't Pray on Me." Recipe for Hate. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993. 

Bad Religion. "Drastic Actions." Bad Religion. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1981.

Bad Religion. "Drunk Sincerity." The Gray Race. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996. 

Bad Religion. "Epiphany." The Process of Belief. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002.

Bad Religion. "Evangeline." The Process of Belief. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002. 

Bad Religion. "Heaven is Falling." Generator. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1992.

Bad Religion. "Hooray For Me." Stranger than Fiction. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1994. 

Bad Religion. "The Hopeless Housewife." The New America. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 2000. 

Bad Religion. "Incomplete." Stranger than Fiction. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1994.

Bad Religion. "Land of Competition." Suffer. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1988.

Bad Religion. "No Direction." Generator. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1992.

Bad Religion. "Pity the Dead." The Gray Race. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996.

Bad Religion. "The Streets of America." The Gray Race. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1996.

Bad Religion. "Struck a Nerve." Recipe for Hate. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.

Bad Religion. "Television." Stranger than Fiction. By Greg Graffin. Atlantic, New York, 1994.

Bad Religion. "Two Babies in the Dark." Generator. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1992.

Bad Religion. "White Trash (2nd Generation)." How Could Hell Be Any Worse?. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1982.

Bad Religion. "You." No Control. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1989.

Bad Religion. "You Don't Belong." The Process of Belief. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 2002. 

Bad Religion. "21st Century (Digital Boy)." Against the Grain. By Greg Graffin. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1990.

Rancid. "Adina." Rancid. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993. 

Rancid. "Another Night." Rancid. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993. 

Rancid. "Antennas." Rancid. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2000. CD.

Rancid. "As Wicked." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "Back Up Against The Wall." Indestructible. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003. 

Rancid. "The Ballad of Jimmy and Johnny." Let's Go. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994. 

Rancid. "Cash, Culture, and Violence." Life Won't Wait. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998. 

Rancid. "Cocktails." Life Won't Wait. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.

Rancid. "Corazon de Oro." Life Won't Wait. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.

Rancid. "Detroit." Rancid. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.

Rancid. "Dope Sick, Girl." Let's Go. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.

Rancid. "Fall Back Down." Indestructible. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003. 

Rancid. "Hoover Street." Life Won't Wait. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998. 

Rancid. "Let's Go." Let's Go. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994. 

Rancid. "Memphis." Indestructible. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.

Rancid. "New Dress." Life Won't Wait. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1998.

Rancid. "Not to Regret." Rancid. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2000. 

Rancid. "Olympia WA." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "Rats in the Hallway." Rancid. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1993.

Rancid. "Red Hot Moon." Indestructible. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.

Rancid. "Roots Radicals." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "Ruby Soho." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "She's Automatic." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "St. Mary." Let's Go. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994. 

Rancid. "Stand Your Ground." Indestructible. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.

Rancid. "Tenderloin." Let's Go. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1994.

Rancid. "Time Bomb." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "Tropical London." Indestructible. By Tim Armstrong. Hellcat, Los Angeles, 2003.

Rancid. "The Wars End." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995. 

Rancid. "You Don't Care Nothin'." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Rancid. "The 11th Hour." .And Out Come the Wolves. By Tim Armstrong. Epitaph, Hollywood, 1995.

Porn for a Feminist World?

Queer Porn: Savior of Pornography for a Feminist World

by A.W.

Porn has a problem. In the same way that minority individuals feel invisible when there are no representatives of their race, class, or gender expression in mainstream television or film, minority viewers feel ignored, misrepresented, and obscured in the production process of mainstream pornography. Specifically in regards to gender trends, popular porn has done little to stray from the age-old script of masculine superiority and pleasure gained from conquering even the slightly feminine. These trends have been instrumental in polarizing my feminist thought and my developing ideas of sexuality, which are in part inspired by porn consumption. I have heard the arguments of many feminist voices who have ultimately condemned pornography as a hopelessly sexist medium. Even so, the goal of my research is to find American porn's salvation; determine what ways, if any, porn can be reappropriated--assuming that porn has a strict definition and singular function--and beneficial to a post-modern society. I aim to pull the voices of theorists who argue for or against pornography from a distance, the voices of scholars who directly examine pornographic works, and the voices of active-in-the-biz directors and performers into discussion here. While I am probing the medium with feminist tools, I believe that there are distinctions to be made within visual pornography, and (in spare terms) the primary distinction that I will examine is between mainstream pornography made solely for profit and independent porn made for sexuality's sake. Based on a cocktail of my own experience and the findings of interested scholars, the subgenre that I propose as an anti-sexist and anti-homogeneous solution is independent feminist queer porn. Before I delve into this possible solution to porn's complex problem let me first present the problem and the arguments surrounding it.

Here and now, in an era that some scholars call the digital age, video porn is accessible on any device with an internet connection. Porn sites are being optimized for visits on mobile phones, and even with restrictions, people of any age can be exposed to explicit images. What has often come under scrutiny is the power of these images to forcefully gender viewers, particularly within the context of heterosexuality, and support historical inequities through the repetition of practices and reproduction of symbols. Judith Butler describes gender as "performative" and only real as long as it is indeed performed (Butler, 1988, 527). Since gender is dependent upon a set of repeatedly performed acts, it is easy to see how it can be constructed by the sexual acts in porn. For example, in mainstream heterosexual porn the woman is passive and penetrated while the man is active and does the penetrating; this dichotomy of acting/acted upon serves to gender the performers as well as the audience, and limit their expression to discourage action outside of the boundaries set for their performance. As for how this affects our sexual expression within the two-gendered hetero framework, each viewer is assigned one traditional gender role based heavily on their sex, and are subsequently taught to find sexy the traits of the complementary role in the binary system.

Mainstream porn transfers not only an expectation of behaviors to its wide audience but of presentation as well. Feona Attwood says that, in the case of women, porn pushes "conventional forms of representation (the safe,  the thin, and the asexual)" as ideal, and they must live up to this in order to be desirable (Attwood, 2004, 13). What we get are most often images of the augmented, shaved, and petite white female, and this representation of the body has been instrumental in leading women to go as far as to undergo surgery. In her report, "Towards a clean slit: how medicine and notions of normality are shaping female genital aesthetics", Lindy McDougall investigates the growing popularity of genital cosmetic surgeries like labiaplasty, which is the surgical reduction of the labia minora in order to produce a simple and contained genital appearance. She argues that the "altered images" of porn have left the realm of fantasy and infiltrated our views of how a real and normal woman should look (McDougall, 2013, 5). Organic parts are too complex and variable and masculine, while the "clean slit is a marker of appropriate and acceptable femininity." (McDougall, 2013, 4) The efforts to simplify and make interchangeable the bodies of women are aligned with the ideal that females should be asexual, which accounts for the lack of a display of feminine desire and sexuality in porn, an issue that many of the scholars we will look at dissect.

I have been a consumer of internet video pornography for over a decade now and most of my surfing was done as a teenager. My experience can be described as this: at first it was exciting, I was finally learning about sex and seeing things that my parents would never explain to me. Then I noticed the ideals that I couldn't measure up to or ignore, as they were consistently on every page, in every image. Soon after I felt an attack on my femininity unfold; the existence of my desire was contradictory to the singular and rigid femaleness each image dictated to me, and this fact, coupled with the unmistakably male point of view of every video I saw, constructed a masculine site of enjoyment inside my head. I consumed porn from this "male" perspective, deriving my pleasure from the ever-central locus of male orgasm, participating in its fetishization but not able to completely relate. This worked internally uncontested for a while, until I found myself searching for authenticity and a desire that I could fully relate to, as what I now see as my implanted masculine proxy began to fail. I was now an adult very interested in sexuality studies; combing through mainstream content available for female perspectives, but I found every attempt to showcase feminine sexuality to collide with industry constraint, and unfortunately fall short. To me, major studios seemed to keep a cap on the options for women performers in order to hold male desire as the focus and driving force of every scene. I was going to have to give up on heterosexual porn if I wanted a fresh script or to really learn about variant bodies and expression.

Pornography as a form has plenty of critics, and these critics speak of pornography as if it is a monolithic genre, which it for the most part is. While some of the opposition to porn has come from conservative forces rallying against obscenity, much of the battle against porn has been fought by a group of feminists identified as anti-porn feminists. These women held a position "organized around the claim that sexually explicit representation is a form of sexual violence that depends on the objectification of women for its charge." (Attwood,2004 , 7) Clearly these feminists were concerned with the rampant sexism of pornography and the possibility for it to actively combat the social progress made by women up through the 1980s (Schorn, 2012). Major voices of the early anti-pornography movement connected pornography to America's rape culture, saying that "pornography is the theory, and rape the practice." (qtd. in Atwood, 2004, 8). These activists confronted all pornography similarly, leaving no room for the medium to be considered beneficial. This issue was picked up by feminists arguing for pornography, sometimes called anti-antiporn feminists (Kohlehmeinen, 2010) but mostly referred to as sex-positive feminists. Sex positive thinkers examine and accuse the cultural contexts that influence porn rather than the medium itself (Schorn 2012), and discourage the restriction of practices in favor of reforming them to be safe and totally consensual (Schorn 2012). Out of sex positivity has come feminist porn, porn claiming to be made for a feminist world by feminist producers and performers. If porn as a whole is a tainted medium, used to gain profits from the demeaned and subjugated bodies of women, does the idea of feminist pornography become oxymoronic?

Feona Attwood takes steps in her work "Pornography and Objectification" that can help answer this question. She confronts the claims of anti-porn thought by examining the writings of famous anti-porn activist Andrea Dworkin, historian Walter Kendrick, and theorist Laura Kipnis. Attwood boils each writers' work down to one over-reaching claim about pornography. According to her, Dworkin believed that "all pornography objectifies women and everything that objectifies women is pornography." (Attwood, 2004, 10) This is part of what distances me from the movement. While pornography situated in the cultural context of the American industry has been decidedly stubborn about what it showcases and for whom, this definition shows a failure to consider porn that features other genders and porn made to empower women. Dworkin fought for strict federal regulation of all pornography, bringing us to Kendrick who looked specifically at the causes and effects of such regulation. Attwood summarizes Kendrick's findings as "all sexual representations which are subject to regulation become pornography, and all attempts to regulate pornography are an exercise of power over powerless groups, including women." (Attwood 10) Kendrick seems to support sex positivity here, pointing out that it is possible that the censorship of pornographic works can further oppress silenced groups. Whereas Dworkin held to generalizations of groups and media, Kendrick enlightens us that women may not be single-mindedly against pornography, and that regulation will deny pro-porn women exposure to positive porn while aiding in the control of what women can consume. The final view that Attwood discusses is that of Kipnis, whose argument can be summarized as "pornography always transgresses dominant norms of sexuality and gender, and whatever is sexual and transgressive is pornography." (Attwood 10) I would say that this view is correct within the context of an early period in the U.S. as progress in porn has created and informed these "dominant norms", removing mainstream porn as a transgressive medium and exposing it as essentialist and didactic. Attwood recognizes this didactic quality in some sense when she engages Lynne Segal and writes that porn "has become “overburdened with significance” as a culturally established way for speaking about sex, power, and regulation...as an emblem of misogyny and as a symbol of the power of the image." (3) Trends in pornography have permeated our understanding of sexuality and the medium is recognized for its ability to be an agent of culture and instill ideals in a mass audience. In the end, Attwood leaves us with an attractive idea that sexual display might just be a source of power for the under-represented, supporting the reappropriation of the sexual image as potentially powerful (14-15).

It has been said that "today sexual pleasure is far too important a commodity for women not to seek their own desire and agency in it." (Williams, 1993, 130) Johanna Schorn has examined well this idea of reappropriation, or margin-dwellers making a porn of their own. Schorn examines feminist women in major production positions as they display power by taking the established system, flipping the script or flat-out destroying it to create a better one. She intently argues for the use of pornography to change damaging cultural systems:

"While it is undeniably true that we live in a heteronormative patriarchal society that mandates certain ways of sexual expressions and does not generally place much of a focus on consent or equality, it should also be possible for individuals to experience their sexuality and pleasure in the way that feels most intuitive to them...in the specific example of pornography [one of the ways to ensure a safe and healthy context] is through breaking apart the hegemonically phallocentric structure of the porn industry and through producing and distributing material that gives a “realistic” and more inclusive view of human sexuality in general and female sexual agency in particular." (Schorn, 2012, 1-2)

Schorn looks at the work of feminist porn director Tristan Taormino and feminist genderqueer performer Jiz Lee for examples of the realistic and female empowerment. Taormino is seen as one of the most prolific directors of feminist porn, with an emphasis on educating viewers and giving performers a stage to express themselves and experiment on (Schorn 4). While Schorn describes one of Taormino's erotic sex education titles in her article, I'd like to describe one of her films that I saw a few years ago, which was revolutionary to me. The 2009 film Rough Sex starts off with interviews of two pretty successful performers in the mainstream industry. These interviews are not the usual set of leading questions ending with descriptions of how the woman will end up pleasing the man, but actual inquiries into the real interests and dislikes of both the female and male performer. The interviews were filmed individually and edited together, switching between the performers' answers to the same questions. What struck me the most about this film was, after the interview segment ended and the scene was beginning, there was an on-camera negotiation between the performers of what they wanted and what would not take place. It was a very real construction of a safe and consensual context, with the individuals' idea of proper boundaries set up. To me this was extremely educational and encouraging, showing that women, just as much as men, should be aware of their bodies and boundaries and should clearly express those boundaries to their partners before physical intimacy. I had not seen that before in any of the porn videos I'd come across online. Schorn explains the vast majority of porn that I had been exposed to as "the kind of mainstream pornography that is overwhelmingly  heterosexist, that is focused on phallocentric power and pleasure,  that perpetuates “unhealthy” ideas about women and sexuality and that supports the image of the ideal woman as surgically  altered and sexually subservient." (6)

The other feminist that Schorn features in her article is Jiz Lee, a genderqueer pornographer with a "sex-positive activist agenda." (Schorn 5) Lee is a part of the independent and queer porn production company Pink and White Productions, which produces both the online Crash Pad series that Schorn examines, and Queerporn.tv that I will examine later. The Crash Pad, Schorn explains, is set up as a single and secret location where couples or groups of queer-identified people go to have sex that "breaks with the heteronormative and often sexist traditions of [pornography]." (5) The series is a prime example of a more inclusive and powerful brand of porn that, not always featuring cisgendered women, does not deny the existence nor expression of female sexuality in favor of another. What, though, is queer porn exactly, and what power of image does it hold compared to that of mainstream porn?

Before we explore queer porn, let's first examine what queer means. Queer has a long history in the U.S. of being used as a pejorative term against gay or lesbian individuals, targeting them for being different or against the norm. Reclaimed and re-signified by a gender variant and sexually variant group, queer has come to mean something more than sexual identity--it denotes having a political stance against heteronormativity and what Butler calls the compulsory heterosexuality that is dominant in a binary system such as ours (Butler 1988). Queer theory has inspired a global movement against social hegemonies and norms, and Scott Gunther looks at queerness and its history through American and French contexts. According to Gunther, though queer has taken a variety of situational meanings within other cultures, "it refers to a flexible identity that's constantly in motion,  constantly becoming, constantly transgressing...First, to be "queer" is to be against assimilationism." (Gunther, 2005, 1) Jiz Lee may be one of the contemporary American queers that Gunther describes as opening a new theoretical space (Gunther 2). This space is a space in which "desire is not only  considered primary, but autonomous. As an autonomous force," he explains, "desire cannot be understood as socially or historically  determined." (Gunther 2) Desire is therefore individual to every person and cannot be constructed. However, forces like patriarchy and heteronormativity can function to alter or suppress desires. Queerness is then set up as a political contender to the dominant script of porn, and activists live very aware of this potential. Regarding the power of queer imagery to invoke change, Jiz Lee has expressed that they "think explicit queer sexuality on film will permeate the adult industry by opening dialogues about gender, sexuality, and sexual acts." (qtd. in Schorn, 2012, 4)

Queer porn is small and independent--not nearly the billion-dollar industry that the mainstream porn of California's San Fernando Valley boasts (Whisnant 2009)--and seems to thoroughly be its antithesis based on who makes it and for whom. "The sexual subject in porn can be seen as representative of the national subject of the United States; the position and power of the white male subject is reinforced through performances of domination over people of marginalized gender, sexual and race identities." (Seise, 2010, 22) Queer production companies, like Queerporn.tv, strive to focus on a more inclusive idea of the subject through the performers involved. According to the website's Manifesto, QPTV vows to "showcase sex that people want to perform as opposed to the sex that we expect audiences [sic] want to see." (queerporn.tv) Their definition of queer porn is "porn that is directed and produced by queer people, depicting queer performers engaged in queer sex acts. Associated with, political consciousness, authenticity and artful independent production." (queerporn.tv) Upon entering the website one can see performers from a wide range of race groups, with an even wider range of gender identities. Each performer has a bio page, listing their preffered pronouns, gender identities (showing that an individual can possess more than one!), and what makes them queer. This lends to each performer being presented as a real person whose sexual journies they've shared for us to follow. One aspect of the company that encouraged me the most is the equal presence of trans identified men and women, who are unfortunately marginalized even within the already marginalized LGBTQ community in America. Allowing all these queer individuals a space and stage to express their sexualities is empowering for them, as they are underrepresented in commercial porn, but also for viewers who are like me and were at any point "fed up with mainstream pornography and the way it has hijacked sexuality." (Schorn, 2012, 6) QPTV is a pay to view and download porn site, which isn't accessible to everyone, depending on economic status or even their access to the internet. However, for those with internet access, the clips, bios, and video blogs are enough to inspire and encourage those downtrodden and made invisible by the dominant porn narratives.

Now, how can we apply this queer subgenre to the concerns of contemporary anti-porn feminists? An article came out recently by an anti-porn feminist by the name of Maya Shlayen bringing up the economic privilege of those who can produce porn, and the general privilege of voyeurs who consume what I would call unethical porn. She relays the story of a retired performer named Vanessa Belmond who was abused within the industry and has become a strong anti-porn activist. Shlayen sees feminist porn as a problematic conundrum because, due to stories like Belmond's, the industry is seen as uniformly and dangerously misogynist. We must note with Shlayen that many women begin sex work because they have limited options due to their race or class (Shlayen 2013). Thus the feminist and queer performers that can afford to use pornography as an outlet for expression and a political tool cannot be compared to the performers who get on camera to make a living and may not have the opportunity to avoid strictly exploitative and harmful sets. This being said, there are two major flaws in Shlayen's views that I found. First is her rejection of all pornography while simultaneously acknowledging the potential of queer independent porn to be positive porn. She posits that, "If “feminist porn” only meant small, independent studios making queer pornography, it still wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of mitigating the harms of a $100 billion a year misogynist  industry." (Shlayen 2013) I seriously disagree with her here in a way that relates to my problem with the second flaw in her work: she describes the Feminist Porn Book, written by previously discussed director Tristan Taormino, as a text that "makes clear that: 'Feminist porn is also produced within the mainstream adult industry by feminists whose work is funded and distributed by large companies such as Vivid Entertainment, Adam and Eve, and Evil Angel Productions'," adding, "so-called “feminist pornographers” partnering with the mainstream industry shows what this is all about: money. " First off, commercial pornography is in fact all about money. I am not inclined to believe that Taormino and others work through larger companies to gain profit, as it is most likely the other way around. The market for feminist porn is growing and large companies will no doubt want a hand in the financial gains. Consumers can therefor exercise power in purse/wallet by buying and viewing feminist porn over sexist titles. The permeation of feminist interests and ideals into mainstream pornography is a wonderful thing; partnered with activism that aims to reform and not demolish the industry (keeping in mind performers who enjoy and need sex work), it can do away with abusive male control of the sets and achieve safer work environments for performers.

Shlayen asks, "why do we need pornography in the first place?" Pornography is a human-made form of art, a body genre that can excite, inspire, and teach. With the right messages of inclusion, health, and consensuality, porn can have a progressive effect on culture. As a developing teen with little honest education available to me in school or at home, pornography was a vehicle for knowledge, which ended up teaching me that what I wanted for my body, as a woman, wasn't wrong. It also helped me discover that I am attracted to trans men as well as cisgender men, aiding me in building my personal definition of heterosexuality. Mainstream media, whether pornographic or not, incessantly dictates to viewers what is appropriate gender and sexual expression, under "certain sanctions and proscriptions". (Butler 525) This regulated gendering is a long-standing tradition in western civilization: early voices like 18th century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft wrote that women are taught being an "alluring object of desire" for men is central to their worth. (Wollstonecraft 170) Women today are still encouraged to follow trends to alter and tame their bodies--as we've seen with McDougall's piece on cosmetic labiaplasty--and their desires are unrepresented and suppressed. Women are hidden from their own physical truths in order to "preserve their innocence". (Wollstonecraft 170) Commercial porn created and maintains a feedback loop between its trends and fantasies and normal society: trends are born of age-old power dynamics feeding on feminine vulnerability, porn then distributes expansions on those hierarchies, and finally receives affirmation via viewer response affected by the power of reproduced images. All feminists, sex-positive or not, can appreciate independent porn made by consenting adults, and that's what companies like Pink and White Productions and Tristan Taormino's Pucker Up productions exist to offer us. Voyeurs can easily change the industry by supporting (and importantly enjoying) positive porn that hold to the strong political tenets of queer and feminist theory. Feminist filmmaker Marielle Nitoslawska once said, in an interview regarding her 2001 documentary Bad Girl about autonomous women active in pornography: "women must begin to vocalize, to assert who they are or think they are, and to reinvent themselves in their own image. This is not something that will happen in a span of ten or twenty years." (qtd. in West & West, 2002, 13) Well, it's been over 10 years since that interview and feminist porn has already started helping queer and female-identified individuals create powerful images for themselves.

Works Cited

Attwood, Feona. (2004). PORNOGRAPHY AND  
OBJECTIFICATION: Re-reading

“the picture that divided Britain”. Feminist Media Studies. 4:1, 7-19. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680770410001674617#.UqnrHvRDvm8

Butler, Judith. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender 
Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and  
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Kolehmainen, Marjo. (2010). Normalizing and  
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10:2, 179-194. Published online.

Gunther, Scott. (2005). Alors, Are We 'Queer' Yet? The 
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McDougall, Lindy Joan. (2013). Towards a clean slit: 
how medicine and notions of normality are 
shaping female genital aesthetics. Culture, Health 
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Queerporn.tv. Glossary. http://queerporn.tv/wp/glossary. Accessed 12/10/13.

Queerporn.tv. Manifesto. http://queerporn.tv/wp/manifesto. Accessed 12/10/13.

Schorn, Johanna. (2012). Subverting Pornormativity:  
Feminist and Queer Interventions.

Gender Forum. 37. Retrieved from http://www.genderforum.org/issues/sexposed/subverting/

Seise, Cherie. (2010) Fucking Utopia: Queer Porn and 
Queer Liberation. Sprinkle: A

Journal of Sexual Diversity Studies. 3, 19-29. Published online.

Shlayen, Maya. (2013). Whose Porn, Whose Feminism?    Retrieved from http://www.fairobserver.com/
article/whose-porn-whose-femnism

West, D., West, J.M., & Nitoslawska, Marielle. (2002) 
Women Making Porno: Feminism's

Final Frontier? An Interview with Marielle Nitoslawska. Cinéaste. 27:3, 9-13. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41690153

Whisnant, Rebecca. (2009) Pornography, 
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Gender and Society. Ed. Jodi O'Brien. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.. 647-51. Published online.

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Annie Sprinkle. Social Text. 37, 117-133. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/466263.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. (2002). Excerpt from “A 
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Introduction to Women’s Studies: Gender in a Transnational World. I. Grewal and C. Kaplan, Eds. McGraw Hill. 170-172