So Rachel and I braved the sideways rain just two Friday-nights past to check out the documentary Girls Rock!, and I’ve come to a few conclusions:
1.) I want to make out with all of the camp counselors at the Rock and Roll Camp for Girls (I’m talking to you, sts!);
2.) Being a teenage girl is so traumatic, I never want to think about it again;
3.) Bad Guitar Club needs to get started ASAP;
4.) I don’t listen to enough riot grrl bands. L7, where have you been all my life?
Seriously, though. If you are looking for a way to explain not only what “empowerment” is (as opposed to, say, being “empowerful“) but also WHY it is such an important cornerstone of feminist experience–so important, in fact, that it has become a boring old cliche stripped of all actual meaning, serving only to make it easier for people who weren’t going to listen to you in the first place let their eyes glaze over, like when you say the word “patriarchy”(a word that itself needs to have its meaning reinforced every goddammed day, because, as a smarter woman than I recently reminded us, “patriarchy isn’t some vague intellectual conceit invented by radical feminists to pass the time in between trips to the Birkenstock store. It’s an actual humanitarian crisis, and it has actual consequences, even for you, even if you say it doesn’t.”)
I seem to have lost my train of thought. Which was: the whole point of empowerment is to build up one who has had that basic power–power over herself, as an actual human being–denied to her. See? Even I am compelled to write that in a passive tone. Again: Men, our culture, patriarchy, deny women their voice. As Girls Rock! shows, that is not a symbolic, romantic lament. Girls, women are actively, constantly reminded that no one wants to hear the sounds we make. My god, I was almost pushed to tears watching the girls, 12, maybe 13 years old who, when put into a circle of other girls (led by the incomparable Beth Ditto of the Gossip) and instructed to go around and just, you know, scream. And the fear, the anxiety, was real for me. The girl who smiles out of nervousness, backs away, saying “I can’t…” just about broke my heart, because she was me. Is me. Even with all of the benefits I’ve had, all of the love and support, I–we–still can’t even make a sound! Because, because…what if someone hears me?!?!
Which is why this is such a great film. In all honestly it wasn’t the best documentary I’ve ever seen (some of the history and animation bits were so feminism 101 that I cringed, but hey, we all need a little feminism 101 every now and again) but the quality of the program itself makes up for any shortcomings. And it’s had me spending a lot of time thinking about the little, everyday, almost forgettable ways in which we fight the pressure to just shut the hell up already. And the ways in which we fail.
Which brings us to a minor, almost ridiculous tangent: I got a hair cut (which one? all of them! as my dad would say) a little over a week ago.
And, as is common when one makes a radical change to her appearance, others feel obligated to comment upon it. To wit, the expected “Did you get a hair cut? It looks nice!” dialog. Nothing wrong with that, really. Other than–I imagine like many people–it makes me incredibly anxious to think of all of those people looking at me. And as such I feel compelled whenever I hear that passing, forgettable compliment, to say something to negate it. Something disparaging:
It looks nice until I wash it the first time, that’s for sure.
I paid enough, it had better look good.
Oh, you’re just saying that.
And so on. Why is this what feels most comfortable? Not to say that there isn’t a certain benefit for modesty at times, but why the need to constantly take myself down a notch? To acknowledge that I know I’m really not that pretty? So don’t worry, I know my place? Ugh.
Which is why I, inspired in part by the girls in the movie who did get up and unapologetically take up space in front of people, decided to do an experiment on myself. I have tried not (and, I think, been mostly successful) to downplay any of the obligatory compliments I may receive from the pricey hair alteration. Just. Say. Thanks. It’s surprising how difficult it is sometimes to just accept a compliment. To not apologize for the hair growing out of my head. I mean, there are so many more important things to spend my time worrying about. But we all have to start somewhere.
