Anti-Climacus

Many months ago I read an article on the AV Club about Riot-Grrl, the 90s, largely Pacific-northwest-centered movement that combined punk with what might legitimately be described as radical feminism. Being both the punk-ish sort and always interested in and committed to feminism of a kind, I listened to several of the riot-grrl bands and formed a life-long affection from Sleater-Kinney, the most musically accomplished of the bunch. Throw in the other major female alt-rock stars of the time--Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Bjork--and one realizes the 90s were a good time to be a fan of strong women playing electric guitar.

But--and there's no way to put this delicately--it was hard not to notice the prominence of men in the lyrics. The use of men was multifaceted: sometimes as oppressor, sometimes as object of desire, sometimes as source for imagery to be subverted, as in "Man Size," or sometimes as shorthand for everything that's wrong with the world. It makes the sensitive man's response to this music more difficult: there's Thurston Moore singing "I believe Anita Hill" in "Youth Against Fascism" and... not much else to guide one through proper male responses.

Of course, there are responses that are clearly wrong. It's been said, and with some justice, that if you're the sort of guy who thinks a song on Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville might be applicable to your own life, you're the sort of guy she was singing about the the first place: the Nice Guy™. To stay on Liz Phair, though it's true as a matter of aesthetics to say "Help Me Mary">"Cinco de Mayo">"Polyester Bride">"Extraordinary," ie the quality of her recorded output has declined over her career, it's sad how much commentary is framed in terms of her desirableness or sexuality. It's not uncommon to see the same general kind of lyrics which were once regarded as shocking but titillating now regarded as a desperate attempt to recapture her earlier magic, a trope that reappears so much it makes me wonder how so few draw the obvious implication that the criticism she receives is only tangentially related to the quality of music she makes.

So when I listen to "Man Size," a great song in the middle of a great run (after "50ft Queenie" and "Yuri G," before "Dry") on the great Rid of Me, I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. It's a great song in composition (there's no better appropriator of the blues from the 90s) and in lyrics, but the album as a whole is dealing with what seems to me to be a particularly feminine kind of loss, and many of the gender inversions are there to deny agency to men (i.e. "Rub It Till It Bleeds" or "Dry"), so: do I like the song because it's a good song, or does this mean I've read out the sexual politics in a way directly contrary to the purpose of the song? Or is there any decent answer at all?