Maybe I Was Right About Sexism In The Metal Scene (Reacting To Comments)

After my last video about sexism in the metal scene received a lot of comments I wanted to address some of them and share my thoughts before just moving on to different video topics. I am also talking about internet discourse and commenting in general.
Additionally, my camera died towards the end, but I hope you enjoy the kitty podcast content!
#sexism #metalscene #commentary

[@yvs6663]

what some of the commenters here are trying to say is that forced diversity kinda blows and yes, it has destroyed some male dominated interests like gaming and action movies(to the point where neither men nor women who previously enjoyed it can no longer enjoy it. meaning it quite often comes from people who otherwise have no interest in consuming or making the art form itself). i haven''t seen anything like that in metal(i mean there might be one but it hardy stuck) since its generally quite resistant to the growth of corporate plants and generally isn't big enough for those kinds of people to take interest. but yes, it does happen and its why some men are suspicious of people coming in and demanding changes for the sake of a space being more accepting to women(aka it isn't 50/50 and thats somehow a problem. but the "not 50/50" is also true amongst fans, not just artists). also, i am a guy who recieved my share of bs(as a teen) for wearing shirts of famous bands i only had a passing interest in. so that form of gatekeeping isn't unique to women nor do i accept it as a valid reason to have less women listen to or make music. it is after all, typical for a space where people tend to have strong opinions about stuff(usually typical of a male dominated space) as for the looks of the artist: well, good looks in an artist attract attention and since its mostly a male crowd, it attracts most attention when a woman has them. if we go a bit mainstream or even back to the days when rock/metal was more mainstream, same is true for male artists. i do, however, listen to music by a number of female musicians i either don't find exceptionally attractive or and even some that aren't trying particularly hard to be attractive. but there are also ones that are extremely attractive and i don't see why appreciating that fact should be a problem. but they also have to have a fair bit of talent for me to stick around and don't recall the female artists looks changing ever stopping me from continuing to support the music.

[@stealinglawnmowers]

I am not a women but I am a male. And I personally despise it when the media and fans call the band, "female fronted" instead of just "fronted" or anything else. I'm very young but I'm very deep into metal and I've been around the punks and metal heads whom are both men and women. I just find it silly that men have to exclude women from a music scene, subculture as you mentioned in the video. This is why rock and metal are dying genres because it's mainly viewed as a "sausage fest". More recently Nu-Metal has blown up in popularity because young women on tiktok has been getting into it, so like it or not its not right to exclude women who make up half of the population. I'm very happy when young men and women get into rock, metal, punk ect. "We got a siblinghood, I was going to say Brotherhood but no, the ladies are in on it" - Lord Worm of Cryptopsy Keep rocking on sister! Sorry you had to face sexism in the scene :( But you got this! Can't wait to see your channel grow!

[@itzanowski]

Thank you! Young people like you give me hope for the future

[@m1hfn2f]

you brought up a very interesting point! girls and women definitely make up a very strong core base for any fandom. recently i saw this post going around where the creator of Gundam said how their very first fan base were made up of young women, not the action figure enthusiasts (at least not initially) sexism does exist but i also feel like it's just a vocal minority. i've been listening to metal and goth music for 15 years almost and the first local fan groups i joined were entirely male. the guys were very nice and helped me get into new bands even without pulling the "name all their albums" card. so happy that this mentality propagates into the future

[@GoblinoAlaMode]

I grew up with my mom and dad being interested and listening to metal (dad was more older bands like Van Halen and Bon Jovi and my mom dipped her toes into artists like ozzy and rob zombie) and it’s a large staple of my musical interest. When BabyMetal got really popular, there was a huge swathe of dudes who were just pissed off and wanting them to disappear. Sexism is still an issue worldwide, so why would metal not have a sexism issue if we all come from various walks of life? I love the Kitty b-roll! I’ll be watching for you and your commentary and for the lil babies!!

[@itzanowski]

Thank you! 😸 Yes, Babymetal received so much hate. I get that it's not everybody's cup of tea, but there's no need for outrage. I'm seeing them live in June and I'm sure they'll put on a great show.

[@DonTheBass22]

Late to the party, but I'd like to contribute. Honestly, the online community's reaction to an Insta post made by Crypta's Fernanda Lira some months back convinced me there's still a lot of sexism. Almost 15 years ago my then best friend, a woman, introduced me to metal, and since then, any new genre, band, or song that I haven't learned of by myself was introduced to me by two women I dated. I probably wouldn't love metal if it wasn't for women, so I am very grateful for that.

[@dustinkemp5835]

I fucken love women in Metal, Punk, Grindcore and all the crazy extreme types of music. I'm still a little picky on what bands like whether female members or not. If I'm not into a band it's only because of my personal preference in music . If a band sounds too mainstream or commercial I'm just not interested in the band. I think Arrowsmith suuuuucks!

[@itzanowski]

Sounds good, I mean everybody has personal preferences and sometimes it's not really explicable why you like or dislike something. Do you mean Aerosmith or is this some underground band I never heard of? :D

[@joschafinger126]

As a Caucasian cis hetero male in Spain with _very_ strong feminist and LGTBQ+ sympathies (I consider myself an ally), I _would_ say that the metal scene is still centred on folks such as myself. That is, it's _still_ kind of dominated be Caucasian white cis hetero males. So is society in Western countries. Additionally, our fascination with the Byronic hero _is_ very much connected to that very combination of characters. However, while we in the scene _do_ tend to carry over the attitudes, prejudices, etc into our scene, my observation is that we're basically more advanced in seeing people as just people than most other scenes, at least in Europe and outside that abominable grey area where far-right and metal scenes overlap.

[@lukas256]

❤

[@HeavyMetalDetectingPassion]

Rock on, Lady!🤘🤘🤘🤘

[@itzanowski]

🤘🤘🤘

[@YourGuitarPlayerAndSinger]

In my experience, women have always liked other musical genres, pop singers "divas" and music that you can dance to, more than rock and metal. And that's fine. I'm a man and I prefer to listen to a man singing. If women prefer to listen to women, I think that's perfectly natural. People like to form groups with whom they are similar, according to their age, sex, or whatever. So maybe we are all sexist and our ears are sexist. So what? And music has changed. Some genres and subgenres emerge, others decline. In the 80s women liked glam (hair) metal, but now it's a genre that people make fun of. That's why glam metal never came back. There is no place for new metal or rock bands on MTV or radio stations. And metal in general has become more extreme in the last 30 years. All this makes rock and metal less popular than ever. That's why only bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Guns N Roses, Acdc and Ozzy Osbourne can play in large stadiums and arenas. Once they retire, no one will take up their space. Everything will be over. And many kids think that rock and metal are genres for older people, the genres your father or grandfather would listen to. All this is what excludes women from rock and metal.

[@Shannon_Stamm]

I find this very interesting. If men feel that women don't belong in the metal scene, then they should remove every single female showcased in all metal album covers and music videos. And that includes removing songs about females as well.

[@itzanowski]

True! But what they seem to actually mean is "women I don't have power over" don't belong in the metal scene. While men can write songs about or make artworks featuring women and control how they are portrayed there, it's much harder with actual humans and therefore apparently not ok.

[@aprilmazae4811]

i want to know what do you think of riot grrrl? i’m not really into metal but i love punk rock, especially bands with women singers (because i think women’s voices are more beautiful than men’s)

[@itzanowski]

I really love riot grrrl music! It's my favourite to just listen to at home as I think it's more enjoyable to listen to at normal volume than metal (which I want to turn really loud but my neighbours wouldn't appreciate that). I have a huge playlist on Spotify (and Tidal) with riot grrrl and similar songs with only female voices. You can check it out here: open.spotify.com/playlist/558wDQ6mwLD40ObYTgwiO0?si=e836ae17f02c4f51

[@JetWindTV]

@@itzanowski It's strange you like riot grrrl despite it involving very sexist themes. Bikini Kill themselves has a very problematic singer. Yet somehow you made videos saying you can't separate the art from the artist, and you don't support racist and sexist lyrics? I don't hate you or anything, but you really need to acknowledge you are playing both sides here. It does make you look a bit silly.

[@EzekielGoldbergII]

It's me. I am the sexism.

[@JetWindTV]

I do actually agree with a majority of your points in this video. I just find sometimes you jump to conclusions. I don't understand the generalization that women are always improving the scene and opening the scene meanwhile men are always the non-inclusive ones trying to push people out of the scene. I don't think that's true. Identity politics can be very non-inclusive. It is a turnoff. It speaks in huge generalizations on identity. Not to mention like you said women should be looking out for women. That's not exactly always the case though. Plenty of people (including women) gatekeep culture, music, movies, etc. I hope you continue to speak your mind regardless and hopefully continue to develop your humanitarian beliefs. A lot of fandoms unfortunately have racism, sexism, xenophobia and all that but I am not sure the modern feminist method is helping improve the culture. It tends to do more harm than good actually. The language of modern feminism is very divisive. It closes conversations rather than starts positive conversations.

[@darklazerx7913]

Im not a huge metalhead or anything, but why is it a problem that men like male musicians, or that they have diffrent prefrences than female fans? Thats not sexism its a prefrence. And women and men are not the same. Take a band like shining, if they where women i personally doubt it would or could be the same. In many genres the style and subject matter will vary based on gender. Japanese metal proves this, because its not as if japan is less sexist or have less gender norms, its that japanese metal culture is diffrent. Yes its more inclusive to women, but the diffrence in genre and music culture is what allows female metal to be popular, not that people like the women cause it should be equal. The world isn't a uniform equal place, and that sounds very sad if it would be.

[@itzanowski]

In neither of the two videos did I say that the problem is that men like male musicians. There is a problem if male fans only like a female musician if she fulfills additional expectations like "being hot" that they would not have if it was a male artist. Why do you think women couldn't make DSBM when there are female musicians in DSBM bands? If you just doubt women, because they are women - that is by definition sexist. I didn't want to go too deep into the Japanese metal scene because it wasn't really the topic of the video and it was already long. I agree that there aren't less gender norms and sexism. Especially gender norms seem to be quite strict. But your conclusion seems to be that women can only be more popular if they are part of those popular, "less extreme" subgenres and here is where I disagree. Female musicians can do both, based on what they personally like. And I think you're confusing "equal" and "same" - the world isn't a uniform place, but people should be equal (as in equal rights, equal opportunities etc.). Not everything should be the same, but women should be treated as equals - in general and in the metal community.

[@EzekielGoldbergII]

@@itzanowski I can see why you would take offense to men liking hot women, considering your looks. Maybe see a shrink instead of projecting your (granted: valid) inferiority complex.

[@Riflik45]

*mauz*