The Birth of Bitch King: She-Bang

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My friend Alaska organized an all-female art show called SHE-BANG, which was very powerful for many of the artists involved, myself included. This show made me notice that I knew a ton of female artists who made art every day…in their bedrooms. Seeing all these women together, supporting each other and networking, showed me that the dynamic is completely different in a grrrlie art show. After I read my poetry at the show, I had many women come up to me and tell me that they wished that they “had the guts” to read their work or to show their art, and that they respected the fact that I did it (despite my debilitating anxiety, I would add). Riverside, mostly, is a very supportive environment in which to make art: any time I show art or read I get a lot of respect and accolades, no doubt, but I am usually one of only two or three women at any given event. For some reason, despite everyone’s best effort to make everyone else feel welcome, some folks (especially women) have a hard time asserting their private thoughts in the public sphere. This is the nature of showing art, to be sure. At She-Bang, though, a real sense of camaraderie developed, like we were collaborating on getting a certain message across. I was very empowered by the whole night. The art, the music, the spoken word and poetry all carried a uniquely female celebration of life and art. So what was missing? I told Annie I would cover She-Bang for Digress, interviewing the participants. The show was controversial; some male artists in our scene objected to the show, calling it sexist and exclusionary. The space that we used for the show, the basement of the coffee shop Back to the Grind, was a “community space,” they argued, and it was “elitist” to exclude anyone based on their gender. Alaska says that she put on the show because she had noticed “a distinct lack of female representation downtown[.] ... [Whether] it was on purpose or not, women weren’t participating as much.” When I interviewed the women who participated in the art show, I explored their views on feminism and women in the arts. Most of the women I interviewed expressed support for feminist causes and ideals, but did not necessarily identify as “feminist.” My assumption was that being a female artist in a sense was always feminist, but that was all I could articulate at the time. Given my friendship with many of the artists, even the ones who objected to the show, and what I perceived as the aim of Digress, I used this article as an opportunity to answer the critics and encourage the supporters and artists who made She-Bang possible. The militant voice that I wanted to use was not appropriate for this publication—and honestly, at the time, I didn’t think that sexism was that big of a problem—yet. At about the same time, while I was performing pretty forcefully at a record release show for a local punk band, some drunken idiot yelled, “I wanna hear some punk rock, bitch! Get off the stage!” The band and the poets involved were floored: this was a band that espoused radical politics and social upheaval—where did this ignorance and disrespect come from? I called the heckler out—I challenged him to come up on stage—but he wouldn’t show himself. And actually, it didn’t matter who it was: I considered it the voice of patriarchy: get off the stage, that’s not your place. I was humiliated. While I am not a violent person, I was transformed by my rage enough that I was ready to box the guy if I ever saw him. In a sense it gave me power—and those who were present said that I handled the situation well—because I knew it was wrong and wouldn’t stand for it. I still find it unbelievable that those who supposedly advocate such radical ideology as “punk” would not see how they were perpetuating a patriarchal system. My participation in the local scene still fired my artistic passions, but I became more and more feminist in my art because I perceived a serious lack of feminist voice in our subculture. Given the stories that I have told here, one could be tempted to think that sexist Neanderthals populate the Underground arts scene in Riverside. But honestly, I can say that this hostility is not indicative of our art scene here in Riverside. That is what was so shocking: we all respect each other’s views here, and these incidents seem to be isolated ones. However, many people don’t understand that although women aren’t specifically discouraged from participating, they aren’t encouraged, either. Although many powerful women are involved with the arts scene, I want to find more ways to encourage and collaborate with other women. This involves re-seeing the way our community works (and works together). I think back on my days going to the Riverside Underground Poetry Organization’s readings. The fact that we all had to battle it out for mic time was a large part of why I didn’t read; it felt like a competition I was going to lose. That, coupled with the fact that when I did read, my gender seemed to make my poetry a novelty (there were few women reading) kept me silent and nervous. So this idea of a “democratic,” open-mic way of working the readings could have served to silence more women than just me. What got me reading my poetry out loud to large audiences was being asked, encouraged, and, honestly, pestered to read by my fellow artists. And now I am going to return the favor.