one day you will die

Feb. 23, 2012 at 3:35am with 155 notes

Reblogged from sssblog

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If you think that women go to Hardcore shows to meet dudes, then you’re sexist.

I’m really fucking tired of hearing people spout this ignorant, misogynistic nonsense in my scene. Especially the women who say it.

There’s a few reasons why this idea is not only absurd and stupid, but extremely hateful and dangerous.

The first and most obvious is that it is a horrible example of slut-shaming in our community, which is something that no one should be supporting or participating. Labeling women as “sluts” as an excuse to dehumanize them and justify violence against them is at the heart of the feminist agenda. Women have the right to sleep with whoever they want without being labeled as dirty, damaged, or immoral. These are archaic and bigoted ideas that have no place in modern society.

Secondly it is WHOLLY IRRELEVANT whether or not there are women who come to shows to meet men. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a woman who fits this description but it is likely that there’s a couple out there somewhere.

The existence of muslim terrorists doesn’t justify calling all muslims terrorists or asking every muslim you meet if they’re a jihadist. That’s stereotyping and bigoted.

The existence of gay men with AIDS doesn’t justify labeling all gay men as infected with that disease.

Even if there are women who may come to Hardcore shows solely to meet men, it doesn’t justify a witch hunt where you and your friends go around asking every woman at a show if she’s there to meet guys. It doesn’t justify constantly slandering and insulting women and creating a hostile environment for all women who go to shows.

This kind of litmus test isn’t applied to men, so it is inherently sexist to apply it to women. Men aren’t forced to defend their legitimacy in Hardcore every ten minutes by people berating them and accusing them of only being at a show to meet women. So why is it fair to harangue and belittle every woman who comes in the door?

This is done because the social hierarchy in Hardcore makes it so that people feel that they’re not really “in” unless they’re putting someone else down. In order to feel included and relevant and like an insider they have to establish someone else as excluded, irrelevant, and an outsider. Usually they choose a woman because they are a disempowered minority in their scene and have little say or clout within their community. This is a coward’s way of establishing him/herself, by picking on the disenfranchised and lonely to make themselves look important.

This is ugliest when women do it. Women in Hardcore often feel like being tokenized is the highest status they’ll ever achieve in their scene. Being perceived as “one of the guys”, however often requires women to sanction and condone sexist and shitty attitudes toward other women. In order to seem like they’re not “one of THOSE girls”, women in Hardcore are often the most brutal when it comes to criticizing, insulting, and shaming other women.

This is extremely myopic, as reinforcing those unfair and bigoted standards only guarantees that they’ll be used against one later down the road. You may be high on the hog today, in with the cool crowd and calling other women sluts to assert your dominance, but it could change in a moment when you sleep with/refuse to sleep with someone, or flirt with/refuse to flirt with someone, or date/refuse to date someone and the fingers are being pointed at you and you see just how unfair and shitty it is.

The third and possibly most practical reason why this kind of witch hunt is stupid and unfounded is that EVEN IF all the accusations were true and there was a roving mob of sex-starved scene girls coming to every shows to find guys to hook up with, there’s no part of this equation that hurts ANYONE. The girls are paying for the shows, supporting both band and venue, they’re putting bodies in the room so bands are playing to a bigger audience, they’re bringing friends and attracting more people, and if they’re enjoying themselves by having sex with guys and the guys are enjoying it as well, who exactly loses here? It doesn’t devalue my enjoyment of a show at all to know that there might be insincere people at the show who don’t like the band as much as I do.

This attitude is perpetuated by the same kind of pseudo-Christian, anti-sex, anti-woman, self-flagellating, fearful crouching masturbators who try to disguise their sexism behind biblical scriptures and out-of-context Minor Threat lyrics and are often found on the internet (not at shows) trying to reinvent Straight Edge to their liking around the false claim that the “third x” is a real factual concept and not just a bitter virgin’s imaginary defense mechanism against his insecurities and Christian guilt complex.

Women are already a minority in Hardcore. They already deal with enough bullshit. The last thing they need is an insecure boy trying to make himself look more down by calling them names or a power hungry woman begging for tokenization trying to exclude them.

When you try to insult or exclude people in Hardcore you’re only hurting your own scene. You’re only making it worse for everyone.

I’m really sick and fucking tired of this witch hunt. Stop it right now. If you’re one of the assholes spewing this kind of ignorant hateful bile, stop it right now. If you’ve got a friend who’s saying this shit, tell them to stop it right now. If you’re a woman and someone is saying this kind of shit to you, kick them in the fucking crotch and spit in their face.

You can’t let this kind of shit go on any longer people. You wouldn’t sit quiet if someone was saying that black people didn’t belong in Hardcore. You wouldn’t sit quiet if someone was saying Jews or gays don’t belong in Hardcore. You wouldn’t tolerate this kind of bigotry and hate if it was directed at other groups so don’t tolerate it when you see it directed at women.

Fucking stop it.