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News :: Gender and Sexuality |
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UIUC Music Festival |
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by aimee
Email: arickman (nospam) prairienet.org (unverified!) |
15 Apr 2003
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Upcoming university music fest 100% female performer-free. GirlZone urges university, community to think about what causes non-intentional sexism to occur in public events. |
The following is a letter sent by GirlZone to the coordinators of Star Course, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows group. Apologies for the lack of caps.
april 10, 2003
hey Star Course!
just saw yer line up for the UIUC's 2003 Band Jam (http://www.star-course.com). congrats on starting it up again. it was such a nice event back in the day. warm weather and bands outside is always a good start. wondering, though, why none of the bands you have booked, except for maybe Illini Contraband (a U of I marching band?), have any females in em.
we in GirlZone have been showcasing female musicians in this thing called GrrrlFest for the past couple of years here in C-U. we do the music part of the 'fest for a number reasons: to draw attention to some of our amazing and inspiring local and national female musicians... to challenge the stereotype that "women in rock/punk/pop/rap/djing/country/jazz/music" are few and far between... to expose members of our community who might only be familiar with mainstream music and musical events (that, for some reason, dig treating females as either vapid, episodic, or ornamental) to some of what they might be missing out on by only hearing about the well promoted testosteroned part of the scene.
we think it sucks that many of the artists who play our 'fests aren't included in band showcases, or played on 'local music' college radio shows.
we are especially disappointed when female musicians aren't part of 'community' or 'campus' music events, because we think that these kind of efforts call for a true representation of the talent that's present, which includes, among other things, not just the talents of the guys. to be clear: we focus on females in GrrrlFest because they're underrepresented at things like this. we would love to see community and campus events put us out of business so that females' talents are fairly represented. we seriously can't wait for that day. until then, we ask groups who do showcases to think about how they're representing their 'music scene' through their booking.
anyway, we know our community and the U of I's campus has a ton of talented female musicians. and, if it's not for lack of numbers, or lack of talent, we wonder why there's a lack of females in these things.
hey, if you need any names or contact info for female musicians, or bands that have female musicians, please let me know. i'd be most happy to hook you up.
or maybe you just sorta wanna be Boyfest Band Jam 2003? but, as music fests go, a name like that would be redundant. and a fest like that wouldn't make people think too much. now, if Band Jam was called 'Band Jam,' and it had all females in all of the bands, it would be different, wouldn't it. people would see they line up, and they'd ask questions. they might even get a little pissed. people would be like, "hey, whasup with this?" and, "why's it all girls?" and "this isn't a music fest -- it's a girls' music fest! why only girls? we've got more musicians than just them!" but it's never like that when it's all guys in all of the bands at a showcase. why? why. just throwing this out for thought. totally don't want Band Jam to be all female. want it, and all 'showcases,' to be a fair showing of what we got.
so, yeah. if you want any contact info for anyone, just lemme know. in the meanwhile, though, please do let me know how something like this happens. it's werid, and i just don't get it.
thanks.
aimee rickman
GirlZone/GrrrlFest Founder & Director
arickman (at) prairienet.org
217 637 4475
www.prairienet.org/girlzone
*GRRRLFEST 2003 -- SEPTEMBER 12-14, 2003 -- CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, IL* |
