Gentle is The New Punk
Themes: feminism, witchcraft, high key oversharing, Aristotle, metal heads
(If you get through the first embarrassing block of text, I eventually diverge from the woes of girlhood.)
It was overwhelming for me to come to terms with the fact that I grew up ashamed of my own girlhood. It was such a fundamental background truth for me, never questioned or looked at too closely. I never called it out because it was inherent. I was female, I was ashamed, I never once knew these things as separate from each other.
Have you noticed how anything intrinsically ‘girly’ is usually considered lacking in substance or cultural value ? Whatever is created to target female demographics is often cringe or belittling to enjoy, necessarily classified as a guilty pleasure jokingly admitted to. It is so damn cool for a girl to be into male driven franchises and activities. I was always immediately let known that any interest I had in fashion or beauty made me shallow and basic, at the exact same moment I was being spoon fed subliminal messages confirming that my external being is the most important source of my worth. Eye rolls and disappointment if I showed off my newly painted nails or dared to say I had a good time watching Twilight.
I used to be so embarrassed by anything I could do or be or say that could reveal I enjoyed being a girl. I played sports and video games and sought to stylise myself with a perfect combination of effortless, casual and perfectly together. I felt the constant need to justify doing anything that a boy wasn’t also doing, of liking something that a boy would not like. In parallel, I was terrified that if my clothes didn’t fit tightly enough, if my face was not flawless and my presence not perfumed and elegant, who the hell might want to talk to me or listen to anything I had to say ? Needless to point out I barely opened my mouth for about 21 years. The very word feminism used to piss me off and make me cringe.*
This, my endless tightrope of desperately attempting to embody the collected-cool-girl who doesn’t care or try yet still manages to look like an untouchable porcelain doll on a skateboard (with a gamer headset). Repeating internally that being an enigma meant no one could know enough about you to lose your mysterious charm, and this was well worth the crushing loneliness. Wasn’t it ? It’s a sad truth I’ve heard out of many lipsticked mouths that girls in high school were nasty and to be avoided at all cost. And I get it !! At the risk of sounding like a ‘pick me’- a fucking paradox on its own. Yet another female trope made to box us and shame us on the principle of slagging other females off. Anyways. We don’t trust each other, we’re in eternal competition for attention, although this attention must at all times appear unsought, and somehow this has shape shifted into the belief that another person’s life could somehow take away from our own. A constant battle with physical space.
Female energy is not this. Female energy is gentle, soothing, nurturing, chaotic, intuitive, intangible, undefinable by rigid category. It is emotional knowledge over rational intelligence, gut feeling over logic, it is accepting that sense can be derived from nonsense. Female energy is not exclusive to the female gender/identification. Everything must have both yin and yang, it is the unbalanced which are dangerous. Everyone and every system needs both female and male energy. It cannot come as a shock to you that society favours and is structured upon masculine traits. Blah blah blah I am boring myself to death.
Side note, did you know the majority of women murdered during the witchcraft trials and torturings happened during the Renaissance, the marking point of modern civility ?** And History seems to banish this on a far off island of different times. Or assign it to the pre-modern era savagery of the middle ages. I highly recommend ‘Le Complexe de la Sorcière’ by Isabelle Sordente about the undeniable trans-generational trauma of the millions of women affected by the Witchcraft Trials and the footprints this has left on the female psyche.
Another thing. I really ought to stop blaming the patriarchy for my personal sucking at guitar. And use all that angst to get better at it !? But I feel this connection between internalised misogyny and the fear of rocking out on a cellular level, I assure you. I still don’t quite feel comfortable taking up that much space. Being that cool and owning up to it. Although I feel freer than ever and am now even beginning to scream however my lungs allow me, which gets louder and less tuned everyday.
Have I never felt anger ? Or do I just not know what it’s like Not to be angry ? Am I always jaded or do I perpetually fluctuate between submersion by one extreme and then the other, thus canceling each other out and collecting a still surface ? This is relevant too. Not only to femininity, I’ve witnessed this very phenomenon much more frequently and dangerously in the male species. The closer I get to balance, the more I allow myself to feel.
Aristotle’s theory on a beautiful life is that it requires the following 3 characteristics:
Order
Symmetry
Definiteness
So, Aristotle says a beautiful life is also a sad one, as the lack of sadness is the lack of symmetry. This relationship between sadness and beauty is just as complex and interwoven as my above ramblings are sparse. There is a clear connection to be observed between a woman that is iconically beautiful and a woman that is melancholic. Think Ophelia, The Bell Jar, Marilyn Monroe... Think of tragic manic pixie dream girls, damsels in distress and princesses saved by princes. Think of a thin frail frame poking under a satin dress accessorised by lipstick stained cigarettes and watery pupils. Think of how we ask women to be both larger than life and small enough to drown in loving arms.
I’ve forgotten my initial point. Just, the most badass people I know of are also the most sensitive. Most of the bravest people are also the most scared. How can you be courageous if nothing ever shakes you ? Look at the hardcore music scene. They’re nuts ! In the best way ! Straight-edge, vegan, raging spirituals that couldn’t hurt a fly creating the most 'aggressive' music.*** Because they’re open, they’re sensitive. They feel too much and it spills out to extremes. Softness is the strongest act of rebellion, and gentle is the new punk it seems.
* I still think equalism would be better branding but I’m really not a trustful source.
** Male were killed for being witches too. The numbers just don’t compare.
*** I also think this is about harmony. If your outside environment (sonic in this case) matches your internal state, this creates equilibrium. Thus, angry music is pacifying.
P.S: Yes I did look up 'sexy witch png' for the cover image.