April 5, 2017 • 33 mins
Who were the leading ladies of the 1970s punk scene? What are the punk origins of the riot grrrl movement? Does riot grrrl still exist today? Join Cristen and Caroline as they explore the relationship between riot grrrls, punk rock and gender in music.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?
From House stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we
(00:21):
are talking about punk rock and I wish we could
have some like shredding guitar going on in the background
right now. Yeah, for this episode, we have spiked our
hair and put safety pin three years just so you know,
my ears bleeding, but we sterilize them. So let's talk
(00:42):
about punk rock because we've got a lot to talk about.
We're going to talk about the genre itself, specifically women
in it, and of course we got to talk about
the Riot Girls exactly of the nineties. Yes, that's Riot
Girls with three rs no. I so oh. Punk rock
(01:03):
as we know began in the early seventies and really
came into the mainstream in nineteen seventies six with the
Ramones and the Sex Pistols and punk rock fans out
there are gonna be like, but what about the New
York Dolls and the Stooges. Yeah, yeah, all that stuff
was happening in the early seventies, but we're talking about
the mainstream nineteen seventy six, that's the year. Well, another
(01:24):
thing about the punk rock movement is not just the
popularity of these bands, It is also the culture surrounding
punk rock. The whole look, the whole outlook on everything.
And part of that, a big part of that is
the is the d I Y culture. Yeah, d I
Y do what y'llself. And you say the popularity of
these bands, it's more like the ethos was more anti
(01:48):
popularity because punk was really a movement that came out
of this disgruntlement of white middle class dudes and um,
they were all about yeah, like kind of forming their
own d I Y media, with their own fanzines that
they would make themselves, and obviously like the whole clothing
(02:09):
of sort of starting their own fashion trends and ripping
up their clothes, making their clothes, being as counterculture as
possible in a way. Yeah, and they really used this
whole look to set themselves apart. I mean, these were
like angry young dudes and women who were like, we're
we're different, we're going to stand apart, we're fighting for
something or not, or they're just nihilists and and it's
(02:33):
chaos and anarchy. Yeah, and a lot of drugs, so
many drugs. Not to sound like my mother, but the seventies, Wow,
there's stay away from heroin. That's all I have to say.
But speaking of the d I Y stuff, because we're
gonna this, this fuels a lot of the conversation. Later on,
we were talking about riot girls. Stephanie L. Carter in
(02:54):
her dissertation Every Girl Is a Riot Girl question Mark,
exploring the intersections of rye girl in the third wave
of feminism, both of which we'll get into in just
a second. She traces though this d I Y corner
stone of punk rock back to British and American arts
and crafts movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
(03:16):
which was spearheaded by art critic and social theorist John Ruskin,
who was rallying for the rejection of mechanization and the
standardization of production that was going on at the time.
And she sees d I Y that's happening in the
early um in mid seventies that kicks off punk rock
as sort of a revival of that and um she
(03:40):
says it's connected to punk because it's linked to the
desire to equalize the value of artistic endeavors, regardless of form,
and to expand access to creativity and production, because that's
the whole thing about punk, Like, you don't necessarily need
to be a guitar virtuoso to play punk rock. You
just pick up the guitar are and you shred. Yeah,
(04:02):
and you shred. I sound like such a square. Well,
a lot of people picking up these guitars and shredding.
We're dudes, as we said. Um. Hannah Hickman and her
essay on Visual Vitriol says that punk is an unmistakably
male oriented creation that forced women to abandon their femininity.
(04:23):
And she talks a lot about the aesthetic, the punk aesthetic.
How yes, everybody was, you know, wearing their short, spiky
hair and wearing the same ripped clothes and everything, but
it was such a masculine look. And so she gets
into a little bit of the issue of women having
to abandon anything that was thought of as traditional femininity
and trying to find that happy medium where they were
(04:44):
punk but they were still women, but everybody looked the same.
And so she says that they used the punk aesthetic
to create a discourse on female sexualization. Yeah, it's interesting
when you when you read about the history of punk rock,
so much of it is fueled bi sex and a
lot of those like early punk icons like iggy pop.
(05:06):
You could pull in David Bowie, lou Reid, even though
their music might not be as strict punk, but they
were all about breaking gender barriers. There was so much
gender bending going on. But at the same time, when
you read about the women who they were dating or
really just sleeping with, like a lot of times those
(05:27):
women were just relegated to the side. They had no
part in the music whatsoever. They were cleaning the house,
they were making food, and so when you think about
women who are actively engaged in punk rock, they had
to completely confront that that traditional gender role that was
still happening even within the punk community. UM, I think
(05:49):
it's worth it to point out that it was a
woman who coined the term punk rock. I had no idea,
and I actually looked this up in a billion different
places because I was like, really, this is something convenient
that they're sticking into some of these blogs and histories
and everything. But an article in the London Observer, it's
a very, very long article about Caroline Coon, who dabbled
(06:10):
in modeling and filmmaking. She's this very tall live figure.
She was very involved in counterculture in the sixties and seventies.
She also worked in music journalism at The Melody Maker,
and her July nine story was the first to take
on the subject of punk rock. Indeed, so as punk developed,
obviously there were women who were getting up and picking
(06:33):
up those guitars and shredding all day long. And a
woman named Hillary mccookery book And no mccookery book is
not her actual last name. Her real name last name
is Helen McCullum, now Reddington, and she was in a
band called The Chiefs, and she wrote a book called
The Lost Women of Rock Music because she thought women
(06:54):
at the time were being left out of the history books.
And she wrote that being punk was quote something you
did rather than listen to or admired or something. It
was about being that person yourself, rather than standing back
and thinking that somebody else was great. Right, So here's
that reaction against the whole the previous involvement of women
in the punk rock scene and the movement. Now there's
(07:17):
this attitude of okay, well, we've seen all these dudes
doing this, all these white dudes with their spiky hair. No,
we have something to say. We want to get involved,
and we want to push back against the patriarchy and
the status quo. And she cites uh, seminal punk rock bands,
female lead punk rock bands like the Slits, the Raincoats.
You've also got Patti Smith in there, who was one
(07:38):
of the early women on the scene. Uh, Susie and
the Banshees and the Modebtsuh. And she quotes Gina Birch,
who was a founding member of the rain Coats, who
says that punk was revolutionary. To me, it wasn't shocking.
It was a great time for women because sex was
taken off. And she goes into again that genderlessness of
(07:58):
the punk look in the punk culture right, and the
genderlessness was actually celebrated. Birch was talking about that as
a good thing because, as Lucy O'Brien, who formed The
Catholic Girl said, for women in the seventies, there was
this huge pressure to conform and be ladylike and wear nice,
inoffensive blue eyeshadow, which I have equibbled with blue eyeshadow
(08:18):
being inoffensive, but anyway, Um, she says that punk ran
counter to women's duty to hold yourself back and not
be vulgar and not be too obvious. And she she
points out something that I think is really interesting. She
says that as far as the reaction to women in
the punk scene, she says that a lot of men
really took it as a provocative stance and almost took
(08:38):
it personally that you were personally offending them by dressing
in a way that was really anti feminine. So this
is after the whole like sixties hippie dippy, like we're
wearing long flowing hair and we're all smoking whatever together.
Now women are actually taking an active role in this
music and cultural scene, and so a lot of people
(08:59):
were kind of weird at by that. Well, and it's
ironic too that the men might be freaked out by
women not appearing as feminine because some of their whole
thing was kind of appropriating more female or feminized clothing
and fashion to go against the mainstream, like like the
(09:19):
New York Dolls who would dress very flamboyantly and where
high heels and such. And Caroline Coon, who we mentioned earlier,
talks about this whole male rebellion thing. Uh, she says
that it's so much easier for a man to go out,
be crazy, do drugs, rebel, and then settle down and
come back into the adult male, patriarchal culture. She said
that that same attitude doesn't extend to young women. You know, basically,
(09:44):
if you ruin your reputation as a woman who's doing drugs,
having sex, being in the music scene, then you're just
done for. And that really wasn't fair basically. And so
she said though that within the context of punk, women
could go outside the societal norms and it easier to
come back in. And part of that is due in
part to the feminist movement that preceded the punk movement.
(10:09):
But when we're talking about feminism and punk, like early
punk in the seventies, the focus was not on that
at all. There was actually a feeling within the community
that feminists were really just these humorists and boring women. Yeah,
they weren't saying we're feminists, We're gonna go, you know,
out there and and get one for women. They just
(10:32):
wanted to be doing the same thing that the boys
were doing. They weren't speaking equality for their gender necessarily.
They were just out there like, well, I want to
play music, I want to be in the clubs and whatever.
There was just this whole view of feminists as as
boring and why would I want to be that? But
then once you know, Punco's mainstream, like we said, starting
in seventies six and Lucy O'Brien in her essay punk rock,
(10:54):
So what the cultural legacy of punk um says that
after that switch app and and punk becomes more mainstream,
it's meaning for women was really preserved as a feminist outlet.
She said. It reacted against he at the same time
redefined sixties feminism and resurfaced in the nineties with grunge
(11:17):
and riot Girl. And with the riot Girl movement we
have the intersection of punk rock yet again and third
wave feminism, which started if you can say that a
movement started, like well, yeah, you can't save it. A
movement start, but it officially started with the publication of
(11:38):
an essay by Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker, in
the January edition of MS magazine, where she declares, I
am not a post feminist feminist, I am the third wave.
Now we're not saying that Riot Girl and third wave
feminism are one in the same, but there were these
two things that were coalescing at the time, Right, it
(12:01):
was definitely a reaction. Well, some people said that it
was cyclical because you had the sixties feminist movement, you
had punk, and then twenty years later here comes Riot Girl.
So it seems to be like the cyclical reaction against
you know, societal changes that we're going on. Right, and
now a lot of people are talking about Riot Girl
(12:23):
again with the whole pussy riot scandal that's going on
or not the scandal could we sit called a scandal?
Will be the right kerfuffle kerfuffle, the pussy riot kerfuffle
that is happening in Russia, which we're going to talk
about in depth in our next podcast episode. Right. Well,
so the Riot Girl movement, uh made people are just
(12:44):
as angry as the whole women involved in punk thing.
Did um. Nobody really knew what to make of it
at first. They called it ugly, it was gross. These
are angry women. The Guardian in two thousand nine. Uh,
like Kristen said, there's this whole look back at Riot Girl.
Everybody's getting nostalgic and talking about it again. It seems
to be more relevant now for various reasons. That we'll
(13:05):
get into, but The Guardian in two thousand nine to
find it as an underground feminist punk movement that began
began in the early nineties that mocked the doe ide
perfectly groom cheerleader aesthetic. And it was a lot of
frustration at the time that was happening for girls who
were going to punk rock shows and who were in
the music scene, but who were fed up with the
(13:28):
fact that the only bands that they saw on stage,
and the only bands that received any kind of street
cred whatsoever, we're all dudes, and they were essentially relegated
to the back. Because if you have ever been to
a punk rock show, I'll tell you what. Those fists
and those elbows, they are a fly in. Yeah, you
can break some you can catch a guy, yeah. Yeah.
(13:50):
And on top of the frustration with the music, there
was a lot going on within the culture as well
that was fueling the fire in these early riot girls.
Laura Barton, again in The Guardian, said that it was
spawned by anger about society's treatment of women with domestic abuse, rape, sexuality,
the need for safer streets, abortion rights and equal pay,
(14:13):
among the issues. Because all this is brewing in the
late eighties early nineties with the return to more conservative
values with the Reagan and Bush administrations, and a lot
of these girls were just getting fed up. Yeah. Well,
Sarah Marcus, who's an author and was part of the
sort of the tail end of the rag ral movement,
(14:35):
uh said that the women's movement didn't have a language
for reaching young women. The language and ideas of riot
Girl have permeated the culture and made this more participatory, messy,
vernacular feminism available to everybody. And there it is again,
making feminism less stuffy and more appealing to young girls,
(14:55):
right because I think by that time, you know, the
second wave of feminism had asked and you had a
lot of these I mean, they were kind of in
the same way that early punk was initially started by
white middle class dudes, you have a lot of white
middle class and more educated. This time it's a lot
of girls on college campuses who are frustrated because they
(15:18):
don't know, you know, their mother's generation enjoyed this revolution
and they wanted to know where theirs was and speaking
of this kind of vernacular feminism. The way that they
did that was not only through starting up their own
punk rock movement, but also with the creation of zines
or which would be short for the fanzines that we
(15:39):
talked about earlier that were part of that punk rock
d I y culture. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of um,
former riot girls or evolved riot girls whatever you want
to say, that they are talk now about how blogs
have kind of taken that that's that place, Um, but
zanes were where it was at the back in the day.
(16:01):
And uh. In nine eight, pre riot girls girls started
up beings like Jigsaw, Chainsaw and Sister Nobody Now speaking
of the feminist punk scene. Jigsaw in nine a person
named Toby Vail wrote a piece in it talking about
her frustration that quote punk rock is for and by
(16:23):
boys mostly now. Toby Veil was at that time a
member of this new band that had started up called
Bikini Kill, which was the seminal riot girl punk rock
band that formed in nine nine with Veil, Billy Karen
Kathleen Hannah, who kind of became the default spokesperson for
(16:45):
that although she might cringe if she were to hear
that right now, uh, and Kathy Wilcox. Yeah, And that
band released its first demo tape called Revolution Girl Style
Now which actually became kind of a catchphrase for the
whole movement. Uh, they all called it a call for
all girls to start bands and zines and participate in
the making of independent culture. Yeah. And then continuing this
(17:08):
whole zene history in Kathleen Hannah publishes the first issue
of Bikini Kill the zine and then just going on
is another example of how this d i y zine
culture intersected with the music. Also in fellow zine makers
Alison Wolf and Molly Newman, who met at the University
(17:30):
of Oregon, started up Bratt Mobile, which was another one
of the huge riot girl bands. Yeah, and the movement
really gets rolling in August of because Girls Night kicks
off k Records International Pop Underground Convention, And that's kind
of it starts to be a little bit of the
tipping point right there. Yeah. I mean, thinking now of oh,
(17:52):
you know, there's a headlining night where it's all girls bands,
and you know it's gonna be loud and it's gonna
be in your face and aggressive. We might think, Okay,
no big deal. But in nine, even though it's not
that long ago, it was a huge, huge deal. And um,
that same year, allegedly there has been some dispute over
when the first actual Riot Girl meeting took place, but
(18:15):
supposedly it was held in d C of that year
when Bikini Kill was on tour in town. Uh. And
at the same time too, like with these Riot Girl
meetings that are happening up, it reminds me of the
whole consciousness raising aspect of second wave feminism that was
going on. So you have all of these little threads
that are coming together with punk rock. Yeah, and there
(18:38):
is there is some discussion out there about where the
riot Girl movement started. Was it out west with Bikini
the Bikini Kill ladies over at Evergreen State College or
was it in the East coast, on the East Coast
out in d C. Yeah, because Evergreen State College is
in Olympia, Washington, and we have Seattle nearby, and what's
going on in Seattle all the grunge just coming up
(19:00):
there with Nirvana, etcetera. And uh. In nineteen two, though,
Riot Girl starts to get mainstream coverage. First l A
Weekly covers it, and then USA Today and Newsweek also
cover it, and it starts to actually make the rye
girls uncomfortable. They don't want to go mainstream punk is
(19:22):
about the counterculture, not about being palatable for everybody. And
they were also worried about losing control of their message,
and so they started this whole kind of media blackout.
Nobody was supposed to talk to anybody. They were trying
to control their own message. And really what that led
to is a greater misunderstanding of what they stood for,
what they were performing for. You know, it became like, oh, well,
(19:46):
these women are just making terrible music, when really, as
much as the bands were a huge part of the
ryet Girl movement, the music wasn't even the whole story.
And so their whole message kind of spun out of control.
And then and you end up with the evolution of
this movement, which leads us all the way and we'll
talk I mean, we'll talk a little bit more about
(20:06):
the evolution, but it really leads us all the way
up to the late nineties when the Spice Girls take control.
Right That's the thing that that was the fear about
Riot Girl going mainstream, because without the Internet and the blogosphere,
you know, Riot Girl would not have necessarily happened right now,
because we you know, it was fueled by letters being
(20:27):
mailed back and forth zines being produced in very small
numbers and handed out at shows at specific venues and
spreading the word about what was going on in a
very grassroots kind of way of having to set up
these collectives in d C or Olympia or wherever so
that you could get together face to face and talk
about all these issues that were going on. And for
(20:48):
a lot of the women, like Kathleen Hannah and the
Bikiniki girls, this was the first time that they were
really able to openly discussed issues about sexuality and their
body and and violence against them. And for a lot
of these girls, this was the first time that they
were really able to tackle those issues of sexuality, of abortion,
(21:09):
of dating, violence, things that really real things that were happening.
But in the way that we have the Internet now
and all the blogs that we can talk about it
at nauseum, there was no outlet before Riot Girl. Yeah,
and this was definitely a way to meet other women
and young girls and think, Okay, I'm not alone in this.
I'm not the only one who's frustrated and feeling, you know,
(21:30):
like everybody's against me basically, right. And it was also
undergirded by the fact that a lot of this was
happening around college campuses. A lot of these girls were
you know, becoming well versed in feminist theory and you know,
thinking more about the male gaze and what that meant
and how it translated to uh, this punk culture that
(21:51):
they were very much a part of. Yeah, well, you know,
we talked a little bit about how the riot girl
culture has sort of rekindled, especially with the pussy riot
stuff going on in Russia. Um, this pushback against the
politics and the culture over there, it's gotten people talking
about previous feminist movements over here. And so an NPR
(22:15):
story asked, you know, is the rekindled interest because of
just nostalgia? Are are people like Kathleen Hannah just taken
a look back and thinking, oh, that was fun um
Or is it part of something bigger? And the hope
is that it's a moment of recognition similar to the
one that launched the movement in the first place, the
rigral movement in the first place. The concern, as Sarah Door,
(22:36):
who's a musician and Portland State University professor, is that
the interest is just a nostalgic longing for authentic community
rather than a practical engagement in radical politics. And I
think that makes a lot of sense that concerned that
um that Sarah Doe expresses because you know, even though
we have platform endless platforms online to express r P
(23:00):
our feelings and our politics. UM, it's so fast paced.
You know, it's almost like you can send out a
tweet and then that's all it is. It's not actual
feet on the streets. So I can understand why there is, um,
there's some concern about you know, what do we have
now with it? Because also to the riot girl movement
(23:22):
didn't last that long by it was over, but Kinnie
Kill was over, the movement was pretty much over at
that time. It was unfortunately being co opted and re
converted into yes, the Spice girls. UM. And no, I'm
not saying that the Spice Girls were Riot girls. Don't don't.
(23:43):
Don't misunderstand me. But it flared up and then because
of the mainstream coverage, it kind of it kind of dissipated. Yeah,
but it has had really interesting effects because as those
Riot girls grew up, went wherever they went, when to college,
got jobs. It's it's re emerged as something else. Now
(24:04):
these women are looking at younger girls and saying how
can we help. So now you have things like the
Girls Rock Camp Alliance, and you have lady Fests where
bands get together and say we're gonna celebrate women. We're
gonna celebrate women in rock. Yeah. And Kathleen Hannah also
made a documentary um in two thousand eleven called who
Took the Bomb Latigra on Tour And Latigra was a
(24:26):
band that she was in post Bikini Kill, And she
made this documentary because of concern about the erasure of
the nineties feminist movement, because you know, at the time
she was one of the main ones who was afraid
of overexposure and was worried about being misrepresented. But at
(24:47):
the same time she's looking back and saying, oh, but
I didn't I didn't document it as a result. Yeah,
And so now she says that she's making good art
and wants people to actually see it since they stopped
performing together, so she wanted to a record of Hey, here,
this band existed and we were doing cool things. Yeah.
And for anyone who's living in New York, you can
see an example of the preservation of Riot Girl because
(25:11):
in June two thousand eleven, Kathleen Hannah and other Ride
Girl musicians donated personal papers, letters, zines, images, and journals
to the Fails Collection at n y use Bops Library
for a Riot Girl archive, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah.
And Sarah Marcus, as we mentioned earlier, is one of
those people taking a look back and her book Girls
(25:31):
to the Front. I just read a preview of it.
I didn't read the whole thing, but it is. It's
very interesting. It's very interesting, and it really examines the
rise and fall of the whole movement and the whole
the explosion, how it spawned all these different movements, like
I mentioned with Girls Rock and Ladyfest. Yeah, and again
you know when they when people ask former ride girls.
(25:53):
Although that's another thing though too, should we call them
former write girls? Is it once a riot girl, always
a write girl? Are we riot girls? Caroline? I don't know,
I mean, is it more of Yeah? I mean that's
another question I have. Maybe I hope there's a riot
girl there listening who can who can tell me that? Um?
But yeah, when you when you talk to Carrie Brownstein
(26:15):
or Kathleen Hannah about this, they say, I don't know
that you wouldn't necessarily need it now because you have
the Internet. Kathleen Hannah also said, you know, she tells
people don't force it, like should we you know, reignite
riot girl, And she says, well, do out force it.
It was organic, So if something like that's gonna happen,
it needs to just happen. And so she said this
(26:37):
in the wake of the whole pussy riot arrest and
subsequent sentencing, um that maybe this is the spark. Yeah,
And I think that it's uh, it's telling that in
the early nineties there was what these women felt like
was a cultural war going on against women, and now
(26:59):
with the look back at right girl, the nostalgia for
it with even though I mean, yes, it's spawned by
you know, or triggered by something going on in Russia
with pussy right, But at the same time, all these
conversations are happening in a cultural climate that yet again
is talking about reproductive rights and women's bodies a whole
(27:19):
lot in a way that I haven't heard in a
long time in terms of people making decisions on our
behalves about what we should do with our bodies. So
I think that it is, like you said earlier, maybe
part of a cycle that's going on, and maybe we
do need right Girl. Yet again, you need a caped crusader. Well,
right girls, she says, not not a single riot girl
(27:44):
to save the day. So maybe for to close things off,
we talked about uh punk rock, right girls, and obviously
we cannot fit in the entire history of women in
punk rock and right girls into a single podcast. But
if you want to listen to some seminal ladies in punk,
(28:05):
how about some suggestions. Flavor Pill had a list, uh
courtesy of Judy Burman of iconic women in punk to
listen to, and she names Courtney Love, who, funnily enough
Palooza got in trouble because she punched Kathleen Hannah in
the face. Yeah, so Courtney Love and Hull still, you know,
(28:27):
give it a listen, Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth, p J Harvey,
Carrie Brownstein, who you can also see on the Fabulous
Portlandia Woman Can Do Anything. Beth Ditto of Gossip is
one of the current punk rock icons. Um, Debbie Harry
from Blondie, Uh, Susie Sue Joan Jet of course one
of the originals. So there's a lot out there to
(28:50):
listen to. I wish we could have a just all
this music streaming in the background. Yeah. Well, I want
to hear from people who were part of the movement. Yeah,
people who are at the punk shows ripping their jeans
and whatever spike and their hair, ripping jeans, making the zanes,
and people who are making zcenes today. I know that
the zine making is not a relic of a bygone era.
(29:11):
It's still happening, and I think it's Uh, it's great.
Keep it, keep the d I y stuff and send
us some Yes, maybe we should start a zne Maybe.
So many things to do, so send us your letters.
Mom stuff at Discovery dot com. And we have a
couple of letters to share with you today about our
(29:33):
episode on Friends with x is Can you be friends
with the people that you've loved? Wait? Yes you can? So,
I've got one here from Joshua, and he writes, I
had finally decided, literally today to request this episode. I'm
so glad to hear about how weird yet normal. I am.
My ex fiancee and I are best friends to this day.
(29:56):
A brief timeline three years dating, three years in gay
she breaks up with me. We take about a month
off with no contact before deciding why not stay friends.
We were great friends, so for the first couple of months,
I do admit I had hopes we would some day
get back together. But it turns out we're so much
better now just as friends than we ever were before.
I know this puts me in the minority, but that's
(30:18):
certainly not new to me. We've only been best friends,
or been only best friends, not fiance's and lovers for
about three years. Now. She's seeing someone else and I'm
happily single. If I could give a piece of advice
to men who are in my position, it would be
to not fool yourself about expectations. Don't fake friendships with
a secret desire to get back together, or you will
(30:39):
pay for it in the long run. And if you
decide to read this on air, and we did, shout
out to listener, Amanda the best best friend I could
ask for. That's really sweet. That's nice. I like that. Okay,
this is from Serenia. She says that out of all
my friends, I think I'm the only one who's been
able to maintain some form of friendship with most of
(30:59):
my exes. I've been the dumpy and all but my
last relationship, and I gotta say it's a lot easier
to stay friends when I've been dumped my dumber story.
When someone breaks up with someone else, it's usually because
they're over them, So as the dumpy, I just need
some time to get over the guy and our friendship
would continue as it was before we dated. But as
the dumper, I'm clueless as to when my ex boyfriend
(31:20):
will be healed enough to be friends. I broke up
with him more than a year ago. We were together
for nine months, and I don't go out of the
way to talk to him. He followed all of the
rules that you mentioned in the podcast, including blocking me
on Facebook. But when we do see each other, I'm
polite and I give him cordial greetings with the occasional
joke or banter. He tends to keep his eyes away
and avoids extended conversation. I understand what he's going through,
(31:42):
but I wish there was some way for us to
get over this awkward stage. My friends poke fun at
me and tell me I'm crazy for wanting to stay
friends with all my exes, but I honestly hate feeling
awkward around a person I once shared good times with.
My dumpy story. I had a brief four months relationship
with a guy in high school who is so far
the only one to have broken my heart. She's twenty two.
By the way, Our friendship has been on and off
(32:03):
since we broke up four years ago, because every time
we start getting closed, my feelings for him re emerge.
He's so charming, and sometimes even he starts feeling like
he wants to get back together. So this day I
sometimes reminisce and wish we'd worked out, But then I
make sure to remember all the reasons our relationship failed
and all the ways were incompatible. Now that we've grown
up a bit, your podcast really hit home and I
definitely see that I have to set some boundaries with
(32:25):
both my lapt X and the high school X. I
need to avoid hurting the former and being hurt more
by the ladder. So thank you for your perspectives running indeed,
and thanks to everyone who's written in mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
And don't forget, our next episode is going to be
on Pussy Riot, so tune in for that. In the meantime.
(32:49):
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(33:12):
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It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?
From House stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we
(00:21):
are talking about punk rock and I wish we could
have some like shredding guitar going on in the background
right now. Yeah, for this episode, we have spiked our
hair and put safety pin three years just so you know,
my ears bleeding, but we sterilize them. So let's talk
(00:42):
about punk rock because we've got a lot to talk about.
We're going to talk about the genre itself, specifically women
in it, and of course we got to talk about
the Riot Girls exactly of the nineties. Yes, that's Riot
Girls with three rs no. I so oh. Punk rock
(01:03):
as we know began in the early seventies and really
came into the mainstream in nineteen seventies six with the
Ramones and the Sex Pistols and punk rock fans out
there are gonna be like, but what about the New
York Dolls and the Stooges. Yeah, yeah, all that stuff
was happening in the early seventies, but we're talking about
the mainstream nineteen seventy six, that's the year. Well, another
(01:24):
thing about the punk rock movement is not just the
popularity of these bands, It is also the culture surrounding
punk rock. The whole look, the whole outlook on everything.
And part of that, a big part of that is
the is the d I Y culture. Yeah, d I
Y do what y'llself. And you say the popularity of
these bands, it's more like the ethos was more anti
(01:48):
popularity because punk was really a movement that came out
of this disgruntlement of white middle class dudes and um,
they were all about yeah, like kind of forming their
own d I Y media, with their own fanzines that
they would make themselves, and obviously like the whole clothing
(02:09):
of sort of starting their own fashion trends and ripping
up their clothes, making their clothes, being as counterculture as
possible in a way. Yeah, and they really used this
whole look to set themselves apart. I mean, these were
like angry young dudes and women who were like, we're
we're different, we're going to stand apart, we're fighting for
something or not, or they're just nihilists and and it's
(02:33):
chaos and anarchy. Yeah, and a lot of drugs, so
many drugs. Not to sound like my mother, but the seventies, Wow,
there's stay away from heroin. That's all I have to say.
But speaking of the d I Y stuff, because we're
gonna this, this fuels a lot of the conversation. Later on,
we were talking about riot girls. Stephanie L. Carter in
(02:54):
her dissertation Every Girl Is a Riot Girl question Mark,
exploring the intersections of rye girl in the third wave
of feminism, both of which we'll get into in just
a second. She traces though this d I Y corner
stone of punk rock back to British and American arts
and crafts movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,
(03:16):
which was spearheaded by art critic and social theorist John Ruskin,
who was rallying for the rejection of mechanization and the
standardization of production that was going on at the time.
And she sees d I Y that's happening in the
early um in mid seventies that kicks off punk rock
as sort of a revival of that and um she
(03:40):
says it's connected to punk because it's linked to the
desire to equalize the value of artistic endeavors, regardless of form,
and to expand access to creativity and production, because that's
the whole thing about punk, Like, you don't necessarily need
to be a guitar virtuoso to play punk rock. You
just pick up the guitar are and you shred. Yeah,
(04:02):
and you shred. I sound like such a square. Well,
a lot of people picking up these guitars and shredding.
We're dudes, as we said. Um. Hannah Hickman and her
essay on Visual Vitriol says that punk is an unmistakably
male oriented creation that forced women to abandon their femininity.
(04:23):
And she talks a lot about the aesthetic, the punk aesthetic.
How yes, everybody was, you know, wearing their short, spiky
hair and wearing the same ripped clothes and everything, but
it was such a masculine look. And so she gets
into a little bit of the issue of women having
to abandon anything that was thought of as traditional femininity
and trying to find that happy medium where they were
(04:44):
punk but they were still women, but everybody looked the same.
And so she says that they used the punk aesthetic
to create a discourse on female sexualization. Yeah, it's interesting
when you when you read about the history of punk rock,
so much of it is fueled bi sex and a
lot of those like early punk icons like iggy pop.
(05:06):
You could pull in David Bowie, lou Reid, even though
their music might not be as strict punk, but they
were all about breaking gender barriers. There was so much
gender bending going on. But at the same time, when
you read about the women who they were dating or
really just sleeping with, like a lot of times those
(05:27):
women were just relegated to the side. They had no
part in the music whatsoever. They were cleaning the house,
they were making food, and so when you think about
women who are actively engaged in punk rock, they had
to completely confront that that traditional gender role that was
still happening even within the punk community. UM, I think
(05:49):
it's worth it to point out that it was a
woman who coined the term punk rock. I had no idea,
and I actually looked this up in a billion different
places because I was like, really, this is something convenient
that they're sticking into some of these blogs and histories
and everything. But an article in the London Observer, it's
a very, very long article about Caroline Coon, who dabbled
(06:10):
in modeling and filmmaking. She's this very tall live figure.
She was very involved in counterculture in the sixties and seventies.
She also worked in music journalism at The Melody Maker,
and her July nine story was the first to take
on the subject of punk rock. Indeed, so as punk developed,
obviously there were women who were getting up and picking
(06:33):
up those guitars and shredding all day long. And a
woman named Hillary mccookery book And no mccookery book is
not her actual last name. Her real name last name
is Helen McCullum, now Reddington, and she was in a
band called The Chiefs, and she wrote a book called
The Lost Women of Rock Music because she thought women
(06:54):
at the time were being left out of the history books.
And she wrote that being punk was quote something you
did rather than listen to or admired or something. It
was about being that person yourself, rather than standing back
and thinking that somebody else was great. Right, So here's
that reaction against the whole the previous involvement of women
in the punk rock scene and the movement. Now there's
(07:17):
this attitude of okay, well, we've seen all these dudes
doing this, all these white dudes with their spiky hair. No,
we have something to say. We want to get involved,
and we want to push back against the patriarchy and
the status quo. And she cites uh, seminal punk rock bands,
female lead punk rock bands like the Slits, the Raincoats.
You've also got Patti Smith in there, who was one
(07:38):
of the early women on the scene. Uh, Susie and
the Banshees and the Modebtsuh. And she quotes Gina Birch,
who was a founding member of the rain Coats, who
says that punk was revolutionary. To me, it wasn't shocking.
It was a great time for women because sex was
taken off. And she goes into again that genderlessness of
(07:58):
the punk look in the punk culture right, and the
genderlessness was actually celebrated. Birch was talking about that as
a good thing because, as Lucy O'Brien, who formed The
Catholic Girl said, for women in the seventies, there was
this huge pressure to conform and be ladylike and wear nice,
inoffensive blue eyeshadow, which I have equibbled with blue eyeshadow
(08:18):
being inoffensive, but anyway, Um, she says that punk ran
counter to women's duty to hold yourself back and not
be vulgar and not be too obvious. And she she
points out something that I think is really interesting. She
says that as far as the reaction to women in
the punk scene, she says that a lot of men
really took it as a provocative stance and almost took
(08:38):
it personally that you were personally offending them by dressing
in a way that was really anti feminine. So this
is after the whole like sixties hippie dippy, like we're
wearing long flowing hair and we're all smoking whatever together.
Now women are actually taking an active role in this
music and cultural scene, and so a lot of people
(08:59):
were kind of weird at by that. Well, and it's
ironic too that the men might be freaked out by
women not appearing as feminine because some of their whole
thing was kind of appropriating more female or feminized clothing
and fashion to go against the mainstream, like like the
(09:19):
New York Dolls who would dress very flamboyantly and where
high heels and such. And Caroline Coon, who we mentioned earlier,
talks about this whole male rebellion thing. Uh, she says
that it's so much easier for a man to go out,
be crazy, do drugs, rebel, and then settle down and
come back into the adult male, patriarchal culture. She said
that that same attitude doesn't extend to young women. You know, basically,
(09:44):
if you ruin your reputation as a woman who's doing drugs,
having sex, being in the music scene, then you're just
done for. And that really wasn't fair basically. And so
she said though that within the context of punk, women
could go outside the societal norms and it easier to
come back in. And part of that is due in
part to the feminist movement that preceded the punk movement.
(10:09):
But when we're talking about feminism and punk, like early
punk in the seventies, the focus was not on that
at all. There was actually a feeling within the community
that feminists were really just these humorists and boring women. Yeah,
they weren't saying we're feminists, We're gonna go, you know,
out there and and get one for women. They just
(10:32):
wanted to be doing the same thing that the boys
were doing. They weren't speaking equality for their gender necessarily.
They were just out there like, well, I want to
play music, I want to be in the clubs and whatever.
There was just this whole view of feminists as as
boring and why would I want to be that? But
then once you know, Punco's mainstream, like we said, starting
in seventies six and Lucy O'Brien in her essay punk rock,
(10:54):
So what the cultural legacy of punk um says that
after that switch app and and punk becomes more mainstream,
it's meaning for women was really preserved as a feminist outlet.
She said. It reacted against he at the same time
redefined sixties feminism and resurfaced in the nineties with grunge
(11:17):
and riot Girl. And with the riot Girl movement we
have the intersection of punk rock yet again and third
wave feminism, which started if you can say that a
movement started, like well, yeah, you can't save it. A
movement start, but it officially started with the publication of
(11:38):
an essay by Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker, in
the January edition of MS magazine, where she declares, I
am not a post feminist feminist, I am the third wave.
Now we're not saying that Riot Girl and third wave
feminism are one in the same, but there were these
two things that were coalescing at the time, Right, it
(12:01):
was definitely a reaction. Well, some people said that it
was cyclical because you had the sixties feminist movement, you
had punk, and then twenty years later here comes Riot Girl.
So it seems to be like the cyclical reaction against
you know, societal changes that we're going on. Right, and
now a lot of people are talking about Riot Girl
(12:23):
again with the whole pussy riot scandal that's going on
or not the scandal could we sit called a scandal?
Will be the right kerfuffle kerfuffle, the pussy riot kerfuffle
that is happening in Russia, which we're going to talk
about in depth in our next podcast episode. Right. Well,
so the Riot Girl movement, uh made people are just
(12:44):
as angry as the whole women involved in punk thing.
Did um. Nobody really knew what to make of it
at first. They called it ugly, it was gross. These
are angry women. The Guardian in two thousand nine. Uh,
like Kristen said, there's this whole look back at Riot Girl.
Everybody's getting nostalgic and talking about it again. It seems
to be more relevant now for various reasons. That we'll
(13:05):
get into, but The Guardian in two thousand nine to
find it as an underground feminist punk movement that began
began in the early nineties that mocked the doe ide
perfectly groom cheerleader aesthetic. And it was a lot of
frustration at the time that was happening for girls who
were going to punk rock shows and who were in
the music scene, but who were fed up with the
(13:28):
fact that the only bands that they saw on stage,
and the only bands that received any kind of street
cred whatsoever, we're all dudes, and they were essentially relegated
to the back. Because if you have ever been to
a punk rock show, I'll tell you what. Those fists
and those elbows, they are a fly in. Yeah, you
can break some you can catch a guy, yeah. Yeah.
(13:50):
And on top of the frustration with the music, there
was a lot going on within the culture as well
that was fueling the fire in these early riot girls.
Laura Barton, again in The Guardian, said that it was
spawned by anger about society's treatment of women with domestic abuse, rape, sexuality,
the need for safer streets, abortion rights and equal pay,
(14:13):
among the issues. Because all this is brewing in the
late eighties early nineties with the return to more conservative
values with the Reagan and Bush administrations, and a lot
of these girls were just getting fed up. Yeah. Well,
Sarah Marcus, who's an author and was part of the
sort of the tail end of the rag ral movement,
(14:35):
uh said that the women's movement didn't have a language
for reaching young women. The language and ideas of riot
Girl have permeated the culture and made this more participatory, messy,
vernacular feminism available to everybody. And there it is again,
making feminism less stuffy and more appealing to young girls,
(14:55):
right because I think by that time, you know, the
second wave of feminism had asked and you had a
lot of these I mean, they were kind of in
the same way that early punk was initially started by
white middle class dudes, you have a lot of white
middle class and more educated. This time it's a lot
of girls on college campuses who are frustrated because they
(15:18):
don't know, you know, their mother's generation enjoyed this revolution
and they wanted to know where theirs was and speaking
of this kind of vernacular feminism. The way that they
did that was not only through starting up their own
punk rock movement, but also with the creation of zines
or which would be short for the fanzines that we
(15:39):
talked about earlier that were part of that punk rock
d I y culture. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of um,
former riot girls or evolved riot girls whatever you want
to say, that they are talk now about how blogs
have kind of taken that that's that place, Um, but
zanes were where it was at the back in the day.
(16:01):
And uh. In nine eight, pre riot girls girls started
up beings like Jigsaw, Chainsaw and Sister Nobody Now speaking
of the feminist punk scene. Jigsaw in nine a person
named Toby Vail wrote a piece in it talking about
her frustration that quote punk rock is for and by
(16:23):
boys mostly now. Toby Veil was at that time a
member of this new band that had started up called
Bikini Kill, which was the seminal riot girl punk rock
band that formed in nine nine with Veil, Billy Karen
Kathleen Hannah, who kind of became the default spokesperson for
(16:45):
that although she might cringe if she were to hear
that right now, uh, and Kathy Wilcox. Yeah, And that
band released its first demo tape called Revolution Girl Style
Now which actually became kind of a catchphrase for the
whole movement. Uh, they all called it a call for
all girls to start bands and zines and participate in
the making of independent culture. Yeah. And then continuing this
(17:08):
whole zene history in Kathleen Hannah publishes the first issue
of Bikini Kill the zine and then just going on
is another example of how this d i y zine
culture intersected with the music. Also in fellow zine makers
Alison Wolf and Molly Newman, who met at the University
(17:30):
of Oregon, started up Bratt Mobile, which was another one
of the huge riot girl bands. Yeah, and the movement
really gets rolling in August of because Girls Night kicks
off k Records International Pop Underground Convention, And that's kind
of it starts to be a little bit of the
tipping point right there. Yeah. I mean, thinking now of oh,
(17:52):
you know, there's a headlining night where it's all girls bands,
and you know it's gonna be loud and it's gonna
be in your face and aggressive. We might think, Okay,
no big deal. But in nine, even though it's not
that long ago, it was a huge, huge deal. And um,
that same year, allegedly there has been some dispute over
when the first actual Riot Girl meeting took place, but
(18:15):
supposedly it was held in d C of that year
when Bikini Kill was on tour in town. Uh. And
at the same time too, like with these Riot Girl
meetings that are happening up, it reminds me of the
whole consciousness raising aspect of second wave feminism that was
going on. So you have all of these little threads
that are coming together with punk rock. Yeah, and there
(18:38):
is there is some discussion out there about where the
riot Girl movement started. Was it out west with Bikini
the Bikini Kill ladies over at Evergreen State College or
was it in the East coast, on the East Coast
out in d C. Yeah, because Evergreen State College is
in Olympia, Washington, and we have Seattle nearby, and what's
going on in Seattle all the grunge just coming up
(19:00):
there with Nirvana, etcetera. And uh. In nineteen two, though,
Riot Girl starts to get mainstream coverage. First l A
Weekly covers it, and then USA Today and Newsweek also
cover it, and it starts to actually make the rye
girls uncomfortable. They don't want to go mainstream punk is
(19:22):
about the counterculture, not about being palatable for everybody. And
they were also worried about losing control of their message,
and so they started this whole kind of media blackout.
Nobody was supposed to talk to anybody. They were trying
to control their own message. And really what that led
to is a greater misunderstanding of what they stood for,
what they were performing for. You know, it became like, oh, well,
(19:46):
these women are just making terrible music, when really, as
much as the bands were a huge part of the
ryet Girl movement, the music wasn't even the whole story.
And so their whole message kind of spun out of control.
And then and you end up with the evolution of
this movement, which leads us all the way and we'll
talk I mean, we'll talk a little bit more about
(20:06):
the evolution, but it really leads us all the way
up to the late nineties when the Spice Girls take control.
Right That's the thing that that was the fear about
Riot Girl going mainstream, because without the Internet and the blogosphere,
you know, Riot Girl would not have necessarily happened right now,
because we you know, it was fueled by letters being
(20:27):
mailed back and forth zines being produced in very small
numbers and handed out at shows at specific venues and
spreading the word about what was going on in a
very grassroots kind of way of having to set up
these collectives in d C or Olympia or wherever so
that you could get together face to face and talk
about all these issues that were going on. And for
(20:48):
a lot of the women, like Kathleen Hannah and the
Bikiniki girls, this was the first time that they were
really able to openly discussed issues about sexuality and their
body and and violence against them. And for a lot
of these girls, this was the first time that they
were really able to tackle those issues of sexuality, of abortion,
(21:09):
of dating, violence, things that really real things that were happening.
But in the way that we have the Internet now
and all the blogs that we can talk about it
at nauseum, there was no outlet before Riot Girl. Yeah,
and this was definitely a way to meet other women
and young girls and think, Okay, I'm not alone in this.
I'm not the only one who's frustrated and feeling, you know,
(21:30):
like everybody's against me basically, right. And it was also
undergirded by the fact that a lot of this was
happening around college campuses. A lot of these girls were
you know, becoming well versed in feminist theory and you know,
thinking more about the male gaze and what that meant
and how it translated to uh, this punk culture that
(21:51):
they were very much a part of. Yeah, well, you know,
we talked a little bit about how the riot girl
culture has sort of rekindled, especially with the pussy riot
stuff going on in Russia. Um, this pushback against the
politics and the culture over there, it's gotten people talking
about previous feminist movements over here. And so an NPR
(22:15):
story asked, you know, is the rekindled interest because of
just nostalgia? Are are people like Kathleen Hannah just taken
a look back and thinking, oh, that was fun um
Or is it part of something bigger? And the hope
is that it's a moment of recognition similar to the
one that launched the movement in the first place, the
rigral movement in the first place. The concern, as Sarah Door,
(22:36):
who's a musician and Portland State University professor, is that
the interest is just a nostalgic longing for authentic community
rather than a practical engagement in radical politics. And I
think that makes a lot of sense that concerned that
um that Sarah Doe expresses because you know, even though
we have platform endless platforms online to express r P
(23:00):
our feelings and our politics. UM, it's so fast paced.
You know, it's almost like you can send out a
tweet and then that's all it is. It's not actual
feet on the streets. So I can understand why there is, um,
there's some concern about you know, what do we have
now with it? Because also to the riot girl movement
(23:22):
didn't last that long by it was over, but Kinnie
Kill was over, the movement was pretty much over at
that time. It was unfortunately being co opted and re
converted into yes, the Spice girls. UM. And no, I'm
not saying that the Spice Girls were Riot girls. Don't don't.
(23:43):
Don't misunderstand me. But it flared up and then because
of the mainstream coverage, it kind of it kind of dissipated. Yeah,
but it has had really interesting effects because as those
Riot girls grew up, went wherever they went, when to college,
got jobs. It's it's re emerged as something else. Now
(24:04):
these women are looking at younger girls and saying how
can we help. So now you have things like the
Girls Rock Camp Alliance, and you have lady Fests where
bands get together and say we're gonna celebrate women. We're
gonna celebrate women in rock. Yeah. And Kathleen Hannah also
made a documentary um in two thousand eleven called who
Took the Bomb Latigra on Tour And Latigra was a
(24:26):
band that she was in post Bikini Kill, And she
made this documentary because of concern about the erasure of
the nineties feminist movement, because you know, at the time
she was one of the main ones who was afraid
of overexposure and was worried about being misrepresented. But at
(24:47):
the same time she's looking back and saying, oh, but
I didn't I didn't document it as a result. Yeah,
And so now she says that she's making good art
and wants people to actually see it since they stopped
performing together, so she wanted to a record of Hey, here,
this band existed and we were doing cool things. Yeah.
And for anyone who's living in New York, you can
see an example of the preservation of Riot Girl because
(25:11):
in June two thousand eleven, Kathleen Hannah and other Ride
Girl musicians donated personal papers, letters, zines, images, and journals
to the Fails Collection at n y use Bops Library
for a Riot Girl archive, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah.
And Sarah Marcus, as we mentioned earlier, is one of
those people taking a look back and her book Girls
(25:31):
to the Front. I just read a preview of it.
I didn't read the whole thing, but it is. It's
very interesting. It's very interesting, and it really examines the
rise and fall of the whole movement and the whole
the explosion, how it spawned all these different movements, like
I mentioned with Girls Rock and Ladyfest. Yeah, and again
you know when they when people ask former ride girls.
(25:53):
Although that's another thing though too, should we call them
former write girls? Is it once a riot girl, always
a write girl? Are we riot girls? Caroline? I don't know,
I mean, is it more of Yeah? I mean that's
another question I have. Maybe I hope there's a riot
girl there listening who can who can tell me that? Um?
But yeah, when you when you talk to Carrie Brownstein
(26:15):
or Kathleen Hannah about this, they say, I don't know
that you wouldn't necessarily need it now because you have
the Internet. Kathleen Hannah also said, you know, she tells
people don't force it, like should we you know, reignite
riot girl, And she says, well, do out force it.
It was organic, So if something like that's gonna happen,
it needs to just happen. And so she said this
(26:37):
in the wake of the whole pussy riot arrest and
subsequent sentencing, um that maybe this is the spark. Yeah,
And I think that it's uh, it's telling that in
the early nineties there was what these women felt like
was a cultural war going on against women, and now
(26:59):
with the look back at right girl, the nostalgia for
it with even though I mean, yes, it's spawned by
you know, or triggered by something going on in Russia
with pussy right, But at the same time, all these
conversations are happening in a cultural climate that yet again
is talking about reproductive rights and women's bodies a whole
(27:19):
lot in a way that I haven't heard in a
long time in terms of people making decisions on our
behalves about what we should do with our bodies. So
I think that it is, like you said earlier, maybe
part of a cycle that's going on, and maybe we
do need right Girl. Yet again, you need a caped crusader. Well,
right girls, she says, not not a single riot girl
(27:44):
to save the day. So maybe for to close things off,
we talked about uh punk rock, right girls, and obviously
we cannot fit in the entire history of women in
punk rock and right girls into a single podcast. But
if you want to listen to some seminal ladies in punk,
(28:05):
how about some suggestions. Flavor Pill had a list, uh
courtesy of Judy Burman of iconic women in punk to
listen to, and she names Courtney Love, who, funnily enough
Palooza got in trouble because she punched Kathleen Hannah in
the face. Yeah, so Courtney Love and Hull still, you know,
(28:27):
give it a listen, Kim Gordon, Sonic Youth, p J Harvey,
Carrie Brownstein, who you can also see on the Fabulous
Portlandia Woman Can Do Anything. Beth Ditto of Gossip is
one of the current punk rock icons. Um, Debbie Harry
from Blondie, Uh, Susie Sue Joan Jet of course one
of the originals. So there's a lot out there to
(28:50):
listen to. I wish we could have a just all
this music streaming in the background. Yeah. Well, I want
to hear from people who were part of the movement. Yeah,
people who are at the punk shows ripping their jeans
and whatever spike and their hair, ripping jeans, making the zanes,
and people who are making zcenes today. I know that
the zine making is not a relic of a bygone era.
(29:11):
It's still happening, and I think it's Uh, it's great.
Keep it, keep the d I y stuff and send
us some Yes, maybe we should start a zne Maybe.
So many things to do, so send us your letters.
Mom stuff at Discovery dot com. And we have a
couple of letters to share with you today about our
(29:33):
episode on Friends with x is Can you be friends
with the people that you've loved? Wait? Yes you can? So,
I've got one here from Joshua, and he writes, I
had finally decided, literally today to request this episode. I'm
so glad to hear about how weird yet normal. I am.
My ex fiancee and I are best friends to this day.
(29:56):
A brief timeline three years dating, three years in gay
she breaks up with me. We take about a month
off with no contact before deciding why not stay friends.
We were great friends, so for the first couple of months,
I do admit I had hopes we would some day
get back together. But it turns out we're so much
better now just as friends than we ever were before.
I know this puts me in the minority, but that's
(30:18):
certainly not new to me. We've only been best friends,
or been only best friends, not fiance's and lovers for
about three years. Now. She's seeing someone else and I'm
happily single. If I could give a piece of advice
to men who are in my position, it would be
to not fool yourself about expectations. Don't fake friendships with
a secret desire to get back together, or you will
(30:39):
pay for it in the long run. And if you
decide to read this on air, and we did, shout
out to listener, Amanda the best best friend I could
ask for. That's really sweet. That's nice. I like that. Okay,
this is from Serenia. She says that out of all
my friends, I think I'm the only one who's been
able to maintain some form of friendship with most of
(30:59):
my exes. I've been the dumpy and all but my
last relationship, and I gotta say it's a lot easier
to stay friends when I've been dumped my dumber story.
When someone breaks up with someone else, it's usually because
they're over them, So as the dumpy, I just need
some time to get over the guy and our friendship
would continue as it was before we dated. But as
the dumper, I'm clueless as to when my ex boyfriend
(31:20):
will be healed enough to be friends. I broke up
with him more than a year ago. We were together
for nine months, and I don't go out of the
way to talk to him. He followed all of the
rules that you mentioned in the podcast, including blocking me
on Facebook. But when we do see each other, I'm
polite and I give him cordial greetings with the occasional
joke or banter. He tends to keep his eyes away
and avoids extended conversation. I understand what he's going through,
(31:42):
but I wish there was some way for us to
get over this awkward stage. My friends poke fun at
me and tell me I'm crazy for wanting to stay
friends with all my exes, but I honestly hate feeling
awkward around a person I once shared good times with.
My dumpy story. I had a brief four months relationship
with a guy in high school who is so far
the only one to have broken my heart. She's twenty two.
By the way, Our friendship has been on and off
(32:03):
since we broke up four years ago, because every time
we start getting closed, my feelings for him re emerge.
He's so charming, and sometimes even he starts feeling like
he wants to get back together. So this day I
sometimes reminisce and wish we'd worked out, But then I
make sure to remember all the reasons our relationship failed
and all the ways were incompatible. Now that we've grown
up a bit, your podcast really hit home and I
definitely see that I have to set some boundaries with
(32:25):
both my lapt X and the high school X. I
need to avoid hurting the former and being hurt more
by the ladder. So thank you for your perspectives running indeed,
and thanks to everyone who's written in mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
And don't forget, our next episode is going to be
on Pussy Riot, so tune in for that. In the meantime.
(32:49):
Hit us up on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at
mom Stuff podcast. Why don't you check out our brand
spanking new blog over at Tumbler where stuff mom never
told you doct humbler dot com. And why don't you
go and enrich your brain over at our website, It's
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
(33:12):
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
com Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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