Even being a feminist in the 90s. It was very polarizing and I didn’t talk about my feminist ideas to anyone not already on the train because the culture wars against feminism had already started that plus the sexism we all ingest. So I took all the classes that I could have these discussions and voraciously read everything I could get my hands on. Now it’s gone mainstream but without the foundational mind shift away from patriarchy we end up exactly where the patriarchy wants us.
I was not entrenched in “being a Feminist” in the 1990’s, but I was involved in being a Feminist in my life¡ and, I thank you very much for being “conscientiously” a part of the fight against the backsliding that came after the first wave of modern feminism… I was not so conscientious, about riding the first wave of late-60’s feminism: I went to University in 1979; I went to Medical School as already someone’s wife in 1983, just blithely expecting to be equally-judged on my achievements!!
I was one of very few women in the late 1980’s, to take a year out from “the race”, a year away from Medical School because I had a baby ( I actually had two; my very accomplished identical twin-daughters, born in 1984), and I expected that I could go back to Med. School, nevertheless, and become a physician. I did that, despite many people, as many women as men, who seemed to unconsciously discourage and discount me.
—First: there was the Assistant Dean, Student Affairs, who was personally very helpful to me, and I’m glad I met him (not the woman who followed him in that post), who assured me that many people took a year-away for non-superior reasons… BUT, I’d still have to wait until mid-summer to see if I was re-admitted **because students who failed the year, and had to Repeat, would get placed before me!**, nevermind that I had been a A-level student throughout First-Year, and they should’ve wanted me back more than the failure-students! He also said, he “didn’t think the Medical Class would ever be more than 35% female”, “Because women make different choices in their lives.”. (Hmm, right: we’ll blame the effects of Systemic Misogyny, on “women’s own choices”) ( Note: I got in, and graduated, with twin 3-yr-olds, with the class of 1988. I spent 30 yrs as an Ontario Physician, and retired due to Hearing Loss.)
—Second: there was my Mother-in-Law, an actual Registered Nurse, who said that she’d seen Medical Residents in the hospital, and I “wasn’t likely strong enough”. I explained, that I was a top student in Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences, to which she just said “Oh, you’re smart enough, but I don’t think strong enough.”
—Third: my own mother, whose first answer to my pregnancy, in 1983, was to head to Buffalo, N.Y. for an abortion; but since I didn’t want to do that: the best other choice was “Tell your husband that he has to quit Graduate Studies, and go get a job to support the family.” Like, lol, that would work. Much better to depend on my own work, to support my own children (and, usually, that husband, too.)
Let’s just say, that as the tiny, undersized “2nd-daughter”, who was 3rd of 4 kids at the peak of BabyBoom, I got rather used to being “routinely underestimated”! Those 2 women above, are still alive in their 90’s; but it is too late for either to understand how near they came to stamping-out my potential. I count as a special skill, my autistic-traits, which made me resistant to “social expectations”!
Im already seeing discussions about Olivia Rodrigo being "the next Taylor swift". Like damn. Let her be Olivia Rodrigo. And let Taylor Swift be Taylor swift.
So well written, and you are exactly on point. It also works with generations.. I absolutely HATE when I see memes about Genx Vs Millenials, etc. It does nothing productive. If we keep throwing shade at each other, we stop looking at what is happening out there.
Especially "Boomer hate" And they are starting on Gen X hate, and they have always done "Millennial" hate because there will always be evil people who hate the young. Then in revenge they blame those older than them. It is the greedy rich's way of distracting that it is always a small subset of every group that steal from everyone else.
Don't believe me? Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Elon Musk, David Sacks and JD Vance are not Boomers, oh and Baby Ellison the nepo-kid ruining media. They are the rich currently ruining things. Not to mention the Kochs, Rupert Murdoch, Chuck Grassley, and Mitch McConnell were Silent generation, prior to the Boomers, just as examples. When you divide an entire population into arbitrary +or minus twenty year sections you are going to get a lot of diversity, not a monolith like they propagandize. It's just lazy thinking, and stupid.
One of the scariest things is how easily women fall for this and absorb it. I'm guilty of this as well. Growing up in the 70's and 80's female musicians who were successful always had those rumors that they slept their way to the top. Sheryl Crow comes to mind in particular and I decided I didn't like her music because of that rumor. Luckily, I got over it. Ditto with Lada Gaga and comparisons with Madonna. She was just a cheap imitation. Madonna was another one who got labeled trashy and no talent etc. and now she's an icon. I wasn't a big Madonna fan originally either and now I'm pretty sure that reputation is why. Now I think she was a genius and yet they got me again with the comparison with Lady Gaga. I didn't like her because of the comparison to Madonna. Finally watched a documentary on her and realized how talented she is. Fantastic piano player and singer! It's so hard not to let that misogyny infect you even when you think of yourself as a feminist. I'm still working on it.
We still have that nasty, prudish, Puritan/church influence going on in society, who cares who someone sleeps with? Are they a good person? Talented? Those people tend to color outside the lines, so judging them by church mouse standards is dumb. It is how the patriarchy shames us for being sexual beings. I wish people would stop buying into the nonsense. And by the way, I have been around many "Alternative lifestyles" and there are tons of church-going conservative people doing things that they condemn others for!
Strange thing is, I'm not and never have been religious. I'm agnostic now but even when I believed in God I wasn't one to judge people for who they slept with. It's just the way people were so dismissive of women because they didn't want to give them credit for their talent and success and it's so easy to let that get into your head without really examining it. I'm not proud of it.
Competition is the cornerstone of patriarchy; it requires winners and losers. Extending that to art is comparing a Macintosh to a Fuji: both apples, preference is subjective, neither diminished by the other. Criticizing what an artist should write about is soft censorship. Clara Bow explained the trick.-- Thanks for the perspective.
So many women have been held hostage by patriarchal constructs including the cosmetics, hair dye, and razor companies that bank on superficiality. What does men's denigration of women say about those men?
I love this. I graduated from high school in ‘74. Saw the Rumors tour in San Diego, it was incredible.
For me the whole terf war against trans women is part of the same pattern. Similar to me having been part of the lavender menace, they are fighting other women for being different and they want sex based rights, another road to hell paved with “good” intentions.
Yes! I see it that way too! They are not the gate-keepers, and the fact they were dumb enough to fall for the lame argument of zero-sum thinking, rules out their view. Rights aren't pie, it takes nothing away from us, to make sure others get their right to be themselves!
Hear, hear! I idolized Stevie Nicks and the Wilson sistersin my '70s childhood. But I look back now and think, my God, what they must have gone through to get where they were and stay there.
The fact is that music, outside of very highbrow music but also sometimes including very highbrow music, has always been about relationships. Exploring relationships between people is a way of processing human experience. Even much of the Christian liturgical music was fundamentally about relationships.
I've always loved the songs of John Dowland, who pretty much wrote the book on bad breakups in the 16th century! None of his royal employers had any problem with him being overly emotional. 😻
Yes! The same men who berate Taylor Swift today for not being as tough and cool as Stevie was in the 70s would have been in the crowd that berated Stevie in the 70s for the same reason: feminists were always reviled by people more interested in preserving the status quo.
Feminists of yesteryear only become cool icons if they can be wielded like a club against the feminists of today. Anything to delegitimize the movement.
“Women fighting women has always been one of patriarchy’s favorite labor-saving devices.” Danggg.
And also one of their favorite forms of entertainment.
Even being a feminist in the 90s. It was very polarizing and I didn’t talk about my feminist ideas to anyone not already on the train because the culture wars against feminism had already started that plus the sexism we all ingest. So I took all the classes that I could have these discussions and voraciously read everything I could get my hands on. Now it’s gone mainstream but without the foundational mind shift away from patriarchy we end up exactly where the patriarchy wants us.
I was not entrenched in “being a Feminist” in the 1990’s, but I was involved in being a Feminist in my life¡ and, I thank you very much for being “conscientiously” a part of the fight against the backsliding that came after the first wave of modern feminism… I was not so conscientious, about riding the first wave of late-60’s feminism: I went to University in 1979; I went to Medical School as already someone’s wife in 1983, just blithely expecting to be equally-judged on my achievements!!
I was one of very few women in the late 1980’s, to take a year out from “the race”, a year away from Medical School because I had a baby ( I actually had two; my very accomplished identical twin-daughters, born in 1984), and I expected that I could go back to Med. School, nevertheless, and become a physician. I did that, despite many people, as many women as men, who seemed to unconsciously discourage and discount me.
—First: there was the Assistant Dean, Student Affairs, who was personally very helpful to me, and I’m glad I met him (not the woman who followed him in that post), who assured me that many people took a year-away for non-superior reasons… BUT, I’d still have to wait until mid-summer to see if I was re-admitted **because students who failed the year, and had to Repeat, would get placed before me!**, nevermind that I had been a A-level student throughout First-Year, and they should’ve wanted me back more than the failure-students! He also said, he “didn’t think the Medical Class would ever be more than 35% female”, “Because women make different choices in their lives.”. (Hmm, right: we’ll blame the effects of Systemic Misogyny, on “women’s own choices”) ( Note: I got in, and graduated, with twin 3-yr-olds, with the class of 1988. I spent 30 yrs as an Ontario Physician, and retired due to Hearing Loss.)
—Second: there was my Mother-in-Law, an actual Registered Nurse, who said that she’d seen Medical Residents in the hospital, and I “wasn’t likely strong enough”. I explained, that I was a top student in Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences, to which she just said “Oh, you’re smart enough, but I don’t think strong enough.”
—Third: my own mother, whose first answer to my pregnancy, in 1983, was to head to Buffalo, N.Y. for an abortion; but since I didn’t want to do that: the best other choice was “Tell your husband that he has to quit Graduate Studies, and go get a job to support the family.” Like, lol, that would work. Much better to depend on my own work, to support my own children (and, usually, that husband, too.)
Let’s just say, that as the tiny, undersized “2nd-daughter”, who was 3rd of 4 kids at the peak of BabyBoom, I got rather used to being “routinely underestimated”! Those 2 women above, are still alive in their 90’s; but it is too late for either to understand how near they came to stamping-out my potential. I count as a special skill, my autistic-traits, which made me resistant to “social expectations”!
Im already seeing discussions about Olivia Rodrigo being "the next Taylor swift". Like damn. Let her be Olivia Rodrigo. And let Taylor Swift be Taylor swift.
So well written, and you are exactly on point. It also works with generations.. I absolutely HATE when I see memes about Genx Vs Millenials, etc. It does nothing productive. If we keep throwing shade at each other, we stop looking at what is happening out there.
Yes!
Especially "Boomer hate" And they are starting on Gen X hate, and they have always done "Millennial" hate because there will always be evil people who hate the young. Then in revenge they blame those older than them. It is the greedy rich's way of distracting that it is always a small subset of every group that steal from everyone else.
Don't believe me? Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Elon Musk, David Sacks and JD Vance are not Boomers, oh and Baby Ellison the nepo-kid ruining media. They are the rich currently ruining things. Not to mention the Kochs, Rupert Murdoch, Chuck Grassley, and Mitch McConnell were Silent generation, prior to the Boomers, just as examples. When you divide an entire population into arbitrary +or minus twenty year sections you are going to get a lot of diversity, not a monolith like they propagandize. It's just lazy thinking, and stupid.
Patriarchy needs hierarchy. It has to rank women. It has to rank everything.
Spot on! Thanks for the beautiful and powerful songs! For your information: Taylor had Sofia opening for her show! That is so cool and generous.
Don't forget: Sisterhood is powerful!!
One of the scariest things is how easily women fall for this and absorb it. I'm guilty of this as well. Growing up in the 70's and 80's female musicians who were successful always had those rumors that they slept their way to the top. Sheryl Crow comes to mind in particular and I decided I didn't like her music because of that rumor. Luckily, I got over it. Ditto with Lada Gaga and comparisons with Madonna. She was just a cheap imitation. Madonna was another one who got labeled trashy and no talent etc. and now she's an icon. I wasn't a big Madonna fan originally either and now I'm pretty sure that reputation is why. Now I think she was a genius and yet they got me again with the comparison with Lady Gaga. I didn't like her because of the comparison to Madonna. Finally watched a documentary on her and realized how talented she is. Fantastic piano player and singer! It's so hard not to let that misogyny infect you even when you think of yourself as a feminist. I'm still working on it.
We still have that nasty, prudish, Puritan/church influence going on in society, who cares who someone sleeps with? Are they a good person? Talented? Those people tend to color outside the lines, so judging them by church mouse standards is dumb. It is how the patriarchy shames us for being sexual beings. I wish people would stop buying into the nonsense. And by the way, I have been around many "Alternative lifestyles" and there are tons of church-going conservative people doing things that they condemn others for!
Strange thing is, I'm not and never have been religious. I'm agnostic now but even when I believed in God I wasn't one to judge people for who they slept with. It's just the way people were so dismissive of women because they didn't want to give them credit for their talent and success and it's so easy to let that get into your head without really examining it. I'm not proud of it.
Competition is the cornerstone of patriarchy; it requires winners and losers. Extending that to art is comparing a Macintosh to a Fuji: both apples, preference is subjective, neither diminished by the other. Criticizing what an artist should write about is soft censorship. Clara Bow explained the trick.-- Thanks for the perspective.
I loved this, thanks.
So many women have been held hostage by patriarchal constructs including the cosmetics, hair dye, and razor companies that bank on superficiality. What does men's denigration of women say about those men?
I love this. I graduated from high school in ‘74. Saw the Rumors tour in San Diego, it was incredible.
For me the whole terf war against trans women is part of the same pattern. Similar to me having been part of the lavender menace, they are fighting other women for being different and they want sex based rights, another road to hell paved with “good” intentions.
Yes! I see it that way too! They are not the gate-keepers, and the fact they were dumb enough to fall for the lame argument of zero-sum thinking, rules out their view. Rights aren't pie, it takes nothing away from us, to make sure others get their right to be themselves!
Love love this!
Fantastic article, sharing! Thank you for writing and sharing your thoughts with us!
Hear, hear! I idolized Stevie Nicks and the Wilson sistersin my '70s childhood. But I look back now and think, my God, what they must have gone through to get where they were and stay there.
The fact is that music, outside of very highbrow music but also sometimes including very highbrow music, has always been about relationships. Exploring relationships between people is a way of processing human experience. Even much of the Christian liturgical music was fundamentally about relationships.
I've always loved the songs of John Dowland, who pretty much wrote the book on bad breakups in the 16th century! None of his royal employers had any problem with him being overly emotional. 😻
I love both Taylor and Stevie. I listened to The Lighthouse on repeat as I canvassed in 2024. It didn’t get the attention it deserved!
Yes! The same men who berate Taylor Swift today for not being as tough and cool as Stevie was in the 70s would have been in the crowd that berated Stevie in the 70s for the same reason: feminists were always reviled by people more interested in preserving the status quo.
Feminists of yesteryear only become cool icons if they can be wielded like a club against the feminists of today. Anything to delegitimize the movement.