Week Seven: “Tough Chicks”: (Re)Constructing Femininity & Masculinity

One of Whiteley’s most intriguing arguments regarding Patti Smith is her comparison regarding her love of Virgin Mary. Whiteley states, “As the masculine feminine ideal she is this analogous to the Lady, the imaginary addressee of the troubadours, who is purely the pretext for songs of love” (p. 99). This is either the biggest stretch I’ve heard regarding a musician as comparable to a religious figure, or one of the most solid arguments. It makes sense in that Smith created herself as a masculine female going against the grain of the hegemonic feminine roles within punk music. Just as the Virgin Mary, who bore a child without the help of a man, Smith created herself among the punk scene by disregarding herself as the “other” in reference to the male figure. By removing herself from being a woman as in direct relation to a man, Smith created her identity in a manner similar to Virgin Mary. Under these circumstances, we could say that Virgin Mary was the first feminist, stepping outside the bounds of the “other” in relation to a man by bearing a child without male aid.

Whiteley goes on to explain, “Women performers stressed both a new muscularity and a confrontational glamour that was far removed from either the introspection of Joni Mitchell, or the blues influenced rock of Janis Joplin” (p. 98). This progression of femininity among female performers is interesting to me because not only does it show the changes of ideologies among women, perhaps from the stance of feminism moving through various waves, but also the balance between men and women in the music industry. As Smith mentions in her interviews, these female artists were taking the reigns away from men in the music industry and creating their own space for music.

Other artists such as Suzi Quatro took this on in terms of their physical appearance and its opposition to male musicians of the time, such as in glam rock. As Arthur Davis explains, her persona could readily be understood as female response to glam’s transvestite males images: “Since many male glam rockers wore mascara and dresses as women ... Suzi would wear very little make-up and -- from a distance -- looked somewhat like a man in her leather catsuit” (p.195). I find it interest, however, that no matter what the hegemonic role is at the given time, women feel the need to go against it. If men are dressing very traditionally masculine, women will be very feminine, and in the case of glam rock when men are dressing feminine, women choose to dress masculine to counter-act them.