channingkennedy:

Hey, the R.I.P. that I wrote for Poly Styrene showed up on the internet. (I mean, elsewhere on the internet.) And it’s gotten like 700 notes! Thanks to vinylpanx for this excellent additional commentary below. workandentropy also has some good smart shit to say about it.

organization:

“Here’s the thing about the 1970s British and American punk scenes: they were every bit as misogynistic and race-exclusive as the society they claimed to stand counter to. And Styrene didn’t look the part of a punk — at the time, she was a mixed-race not-skinny avowed-feminist teenager with braces and day-glo old lady clothes, who later struggled with mental health issues. But Styrene embraced her role as punk’s conscience, both as critic and role model; she screamed down consumerism and magazine culture both inside and outside the scene, with a bullying shriek still heard in singers like latter-day feminist icon Kathleen Hanna.”

—

“Poly Styrene, Multiracial Feminist Punk Icon, Dead at 53” by Channing Kennedy (via tulletulle)

Here’s the thing though: while I would not go so far as to say punk in any (ANY) era has been a multicultural wonderland, if we look at the role of women in the scene in the ‘70’s and compare that to their role in the ‘80’s ESPECIALLY after the rise of hardcore it is safe to say punk of the 70’s was more conscious of inclusion. Women were on the stage, in the pit and in production in the 70’s where that role changes drastically in the 80’s and we start to see women-inclusive punk get downgraded to “new wave” and dismissed.

Poly Styrene and the X-Ray Spex. Ari Up, Palmolive from the Slits. Patti Smith. Siouxsie Sioux. Exene Cervenka of X. Lydia Lunch. Debbie Harry. The Runaways. Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre from CRASS. etc

Again, not gonna defend punk as perfect. But you see a drastic change in the scene with hardcore that I think never went away, where being a woman in the pit or onstage is akin to painting a target on your back instead of being included as an equal and where women’s issues are part of a separate scene (and became one with Riot Grrl in the 90’s). Punk in the 70’s was a liminal moment, I think, where men and women were angry and driven to create something different and could do so together and I don’t know that Poly Styrene could have done what she did had she done it ten years later.

Punk: The Early Years is a nice little doc from the 70’s with the Slits and Poly among others and gets into talking a little about the gender dynamics.

(Source: lostgrrrls)