to a great extent

lionza:

“At the same time, the scene told me a lot about what was considered appropriate male behavior. We were supposed to slam dance, to run wildly into people (all people) without consideration, it was OK to be aggressive in the pit (not doing so was “weak” and or meant I just “couldn’t take it”). Occasional fights were to be expected and nobody saw anything really wrong with it. We (men) should be up front yelling the words, we should be in the bands writing the words, and we should be doing the shows. The punk scene taught me this. It pretty much taught me that it was men running the show (often times, quite literally). Similarly, sharing our feelings and emotions—beyond song lyrics—was generally frowned upon and often mocked as being ‘emo.’”

note: the last sentence reminded me of how so many people mocked folk punk as being for “sissies” in my home town. our folk punk was coincidentally a scene with much more females and more radical values about accepting each other and being considerate (which are considered to be more feminine traits). 

this is a good article, i hadn’t seen it before. always heartening to see a dude talk about this stuff.

“Sadly, conversations on this topic sometimes tend towards the unproductive—and definitely not because of the women who bring up male supremacy and privilege—but because men in the punk scene can’t take responsibility for how their actions reinforce patriarchy and react defensively, dismissively, or simply say “right on” but then keep doing the same thing. Quite plainly, it’s the dudes fault and it always will be until we own up to our actions and how we carry ourselves. Moreover, men need to understand that we can’t just think we got it all figured out, that we’re “anti-sexist” because we’re “political” or because we talk about sexism on a website. Challenging patriarchy is an ongoing process and in needs continuous work and conscious effort.”