Lean In feminism in the marching arts, or Why I Will Fight All GirlBosses of DCI On Sight: a thread

Lean in feminism comes from a 2013 book by Sheryl Sandberg. To spare you all some ragetweeting, if you're interested in a spectacularly damaging neoliberal take on how women should market themselves as consumer objects while turning a blind eye to systemic bias, look it up.

Back to the marching arts. I see many individuals who are self-described progressives advocate for more women+ caption heads, corps directors, on boards of directors, etc. Until we have dismantled patriarchy in the marching arts, this kind of approach reinscribes the status quo.

Here's why: creating a solely women+ corps would not rid the group of the influence of a deeply entrenched patriarchy. It would still have issues of domination and control by performing the same kind of exclusion that prevents women+ from joining @TheCavaliers.

An all women+ space would not absolve us from falling into a politics of exception. Insubordination doesn’t mean equity in this hypothetical. ESPECIALLY bc our activity is purportedly centered around facilitating an educational experience.

To deny membership on the basis of gender in an educational activity is to deny access to an educational experience. This is completely different from all women+ performance collectives that use their gender exclusive membership makeup as part of their politics of performance.

Beware the trap of seeing women+ in positions of power as a mark of real progress in addressing systemic issues. We cannot fundamentally change the activity simply by being "a lovable younger sister who just wants to play on the big brother's team" (quote from @bellhooks)

To quote @doctaj: "Neoliberalism and biopolitics domesticate literal feminist noise: because we've traditionally equated women's silence with their oppression, 'loudness' has become a metaphor for and measure of their progress" (from The Sonic Episteme, 142).

For white folks, this kind of ladder-climbing opportunism is admirable. "White supremacy grants white people the ability to be understood as expressing a dynamic range; whites can legitimately shout bc we hear them/ourselves as mainly normalized" ( @doctaj again, 145).

We haven't overcome entrenched patriarchy in drum corps because there are women+ at all levels of the activity. We have just refashioned a means of oppression to allow women+ to perpetuate trauma education instead of men.

Let me be clear: I support all women+ spaces. I also would rather see us organize to dismantle the patriarchy as it manifests in our activity without performing acts of exclusion that have had such profound impacts on many of our careers in the marching arts.

I would love to see an all women+ staff, membership, corps evolve naturally over time as a byproduct of equity initiatives in the activity. It should not come about in an attempt to be insubordinate to a male-dominated activity.

To argue for the creation of a women+ exclusive space in an educational activity is to attempt to dismantle a system of oppression by (you guessed it) just refashioning that same system of oppression.

How do we dismantle the patriarchy in the marching arts? Stop hiring token women+ on your staff for just one season. Stop using explicitly/implicitly acknowledged women+ quotas while contracting members. Pay women+ staff equal to their male counterparts & make pay rate public.

Stop acting like you don't know how to handle women+ students and stop tiptoeing around your women+ students when you are clearly ignorant about their needs. Stop forcing your women+ students to fit into a box of what you think a good member should look like, behave like, etc.

Most of all, amplify the voices of women+ activists, educators, members, above your own voice. We have been speaking for generations & our recent perceived loudness isn't progress. @madisonscouts going gender inclusive IS. Gender inclusive policy language IS. Put pressure on em.

work that influenced my thoughts and this thread: @ShlomitSofer's article on the "Specters of Sex" in music analysis, @doctaj's most recent book "The Sonic Episteme, conversations with @Breathe_DAH and @marchingrand, and inspiring work done by @MarchingArtsAIN

Also if you aren't following and listening to @PAISOCofficial, do so! They're hosting a webinar on marching arts diversity initiatives on August 15th, 1:00 EDT/12:00CDT! Sign up via their Facebook page. for my birthday, everyone go learn from PAISOC!!