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Mixing in FeminismAlyxandra VeseyPublished online: 19 Jun 2015.

To cite this article: Alyxandra Vesey (2015): Mixing in Feminism, Popular Music and Society, DOI:10.1080/03007766.2015.1055919

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Mixing in FeminismAlyxandra Vesey

This article argues that music is a meaningful resource within feminist and queer

communities that supplements traditional modes of activist work and politicalcommentary. To do so, it analyzes guest-curated playlists for feminist- and queer-orientedmultimedia sites Bitch Media and Homoground by offering thick description of a

representative playlist from each site’s archive in order to interpret their political motives.Such mixing practices represent playlists’ civic engagement in two ways. First, they

demonstrate fan identification through producers’ efforts to assemble feminist critiquesfrom music by recording artists who represent various eras and genres and identify as

female, queer, and/or people of color. Second, it indicates digital media’s potential forcommunity-building.

In May 2012, members of the independent comic book publisher Not Your Mother’s

Meatloaf created a playlist for Homoground, a multimedia website that championsthe work of queer, feminist, and allied artist communities and activist groups. The

playlist promoted their efforts “to challenge hetero- and gender-normative practicesin [sex] education” (“#MIXTAPE041”). Inspired by the Boston Women’s Health

Collective’s 1970 book Our Bodies, Ourselves, editors Saiya Miller and Liza Bleycurated contributors’ sexually explicit black-ink illustrations. Not Your Mother’sMeatloaf challenged traditional forms of sex education curricula, which the editors

characterized as “rife with confusion, embarrassment, and shame” (“About”). Theseries represented subjects’ personal narratives and fantasies around first experiences,

masturbation, contraception, consent, gender identity, and sexual practices likeBDSM. Miller and Bley organized issues by theme before releasing an edited collection

of the series through Soft Skull Press a year later.The playlist represents what “these comics would say if they could sing and play

instruments” (“#MIXTAPE041”). It features Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s “None of Your Business”and their 1990 single “Let’s Talk about Sex,” which samples the melody to Margie

Joseph’s 1970 R&B ballad “Your Sweet Lovin’” and the horn riff from the StapleSingers’ 1972 hit “I’ll Take You There.” Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandy “Pepa” Denton’sverses in each song advocate women’s autonomy and partners’ shared responsibilities

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in maintaining sexual health. “Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf Mix” also places the

group’s energetic sound and assertive style alongside selections from other genres. Thehour-long playlist includes Sonic Youth’s “Contre le Sexisme,” a feedback-laced ode toFrench singer Brigitte Fontaine (Gordon). It also has country singer Loretta Lynn’s

plainspoken reproductive choice anthem “The Pill” andDes Ark’s “If By Gay YouMeanTotally Fucking Awesome, Then Yeah I Guess It’s Pretty Gay,” an anguished plea for a

lover’s return delivered over a torrent of drums and minor-key strings.Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf ’s playlist demonstrates how activists and media

producers use music to contextualize their efforts. Though these playlists are shapedby the format and copyright restrictions embedded in various streaming services, they

ultimately serve as meaningful political critique. These playlists use music’s capacityfor immersion and commentary to extend queer and feminist activist work and

grassroots media production online. To support such claims, this article analyzesguest-curated playlists for feminist- and queer-oriented multimedia sites Homo-ground and Bitch Media by offering thick description of a representative playlist from

each site’s archive in order to interpret their political motives. Such mixing practicesrepresent playlists’ civic engagement in two ways. First, they demonstrate fan

identification through producers’ efforts to assemble feminist critiques from music byrecording artists who represent various eras and genres and identify as female, queer,

and/or people of color. Second, they indicate digital media’s potential for community-building.

Compiling Scholarly Discourses

Study of feminist and queer playlist production exists within intersecting scholarlydiscourses on counterpublics, sound studies, and new media. It elaborates upon Rob

Drew’s definition of a playlist as an “eclectic, quirky collection of personal favoritesongs” (534). Playlist production began in earnest in the 1960s and was reframed as apolitical threat two decades later when technological affordances in home taping

challenged “the single-artist album’s dominance as a format of music reception”(ibid.). Ultimately, Drew focuses on the corporate exploitation of playlists’

eclecticism. Some of the acts on the playlists analyzed in this article comply withthe recording industry’s corporate machinations as signees to mainstream record

labels and their subsidiaries. Yet the mixing practices detailed in this study attempt tochallenge such overt commercialism by harnessing the political potential embedded

within “personal favorite songs.”Playlists demonstrate how particular communities become counterpublics. Nancy

Fraser defines counterpublics as the “parallel discursive arenas [in] which members ofsubordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses . . . to formulateoppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs” apart from more

hegemonically central deliberative forums (67). They can resemble musicalsubcultures, where social events and leisure activities frequently offer networking

and promotional opportunities for participants (Enke). Jack Halberstam uses the

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formation of queer punk—a loose confluence of riot grrrl, queercore, and post-riot

grrrl bands—to argue that subcultures “provide a vital sense of the seemingly organicnature of ‘community,’ and they make visible the forms of unbelonging anddisconnection that are necessary to the creation of community” (153).

Such tensions reinforce Fraser’s claim about the mutually constitutive role thatenclaving and outreach play in counterpublics. Enclaving is the process by which a

territory is surrounded while outreach represents the point(s) of contact between thosetwo spaces and the possible connections between other territories (67). Despite the

terms’ original application to nation-states’ geopolitical boundaries, enclaving andoutreach can apply to musical practices. Alice Echols, Mark Katz, Kembrew McLeod

and Peter DiCola, and Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton (Last Night, Record Players)explore deejays’ contributions to music scenes through their ability to sequence,

sample, and remix recordings that inspire outreach through congregation and sharedresources. In addition, Katz and Echols problematize discourses of technologicalmastery and subcultural formation that inscribe hip-hop deejays as hegemonically

masculine auteurist figures and musical subgenres like disco as connotatively white,class-mobile, and gay, despite their culturally heterogeneous origins. Such arguments

correspond with Sara Cohen’s and Holly Kruse’s observations about local rock musicscenes’ marginalization and exclusion of female participants. This explains enclaving’s

utility for queer and feminist communities while gesturing toward outreach’s ability tostrengthen counterpublics’ resources.

A. Finn Enke builds upon Fraser’s interest in enclaving by noting that Midwestern-based women “constituted feminist activism by intervening in established publicspaces and by creating new kinds of spaces” between 1960 and 1980 (8). They

accomplished this by starting feminist-identified institutions like “women only” coffeehouses, dance clubs, and events like the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. These

spaces politicized pleasure, leisure, and “private” matters like sex and homosocialityby making them a public concern and foregrounding women’s musical contributions

within them. Enke also criticizes how “issues of property, cultural capital, sexuality,and respectability” formed “new articulations of feminism, sexuality, and even the

definition of woman” that systemically excluded transgender individuals andcommunities (218). Such contention over what constitutes feminist and queer

identities and who gets to define them offers contour and friction to counterpublics’formations. For example, Homoground and Bitch Media use what Judith Butler refersto as “injurious terms”—epithets historically waged against marginalized groups on

the basis of race, gender, and sexuality—for the purposes of critical reclamation. Theyalso exist within a climate of skepticism around homonormativity, a term both Lisa

Duggan and Susan Stryker use to critique the mainstreaming of queer culture throughgay and lesbian activist groups’ focus on equal marriage, reliance upon corporate

sponsorship, and disregard for trans communities’ distinct needs.In addition, zine production operates within organizational models that harness

alternative distribution networks that inform the mixing practices of specific feministand queer communities. Zines frequently serve as a form of currency within

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counterpublics as well as a tool “alongside other activist strategies to make pressing

issues public and to create social change in their communities” (Zobl 5–6). Manyzinesters harness primitive technologies like photocopiers and website templates—often as clandestine activities by students and temporary or paraprofessional office

workers—to engender such change (Sinor; Kearney; Zobl). In her research on teenagegirls’ blog production as an extension of zine-making, Jessalynn Marie Keller argues

that such practices redefine “what it means to participate in feminist politics, drawingon opportunities that the Internet provides to embrace new understandings of

community, activism, and even feminism itself” (430). Online spaces challengesingular definitions of feminist community by facilitating the development of “a

global network” of individuals and groups “that participate in feminist activism inmultiple ways” (435).

Zine production also functions as a form of consciousness-raising. Zinesters use thepolitical potential of “life-writing,” a term Jennifer Sinor uses to describe theconfrontational, first-person confession of traumatic subjects like incest, abuse, and

self-harm. Playlist producers frequently use anecdotal writing about their relationshipto music through their personal experiences with citizenship and political organizing.

Mary Celeste Kearney also observes that zinesters use bricolage and parody ininterpreting popular culture’s mixed political messages about female empowerment

and its relationship to commodification, objectification, white privilege, andconventions of female beauty and decorum. Such critical engagement opens up a

space in which consumers can challenge the preferred readings that some mediaproducers bring to texts, a foundational argument for cultural theorist Stuart Hall’sencoding/decoding model. With playlists, decoding manifests in producers’

negotiations with the commercial recording industry through simultaneouslyidentifying with and challenging musical subcultures, independent artists, and

mainstream figures.Zines also rely upon themes as useful structural mechanisms for original work.

In their history of Sassy, a feminist magazine for teenage girls from the 1990s that washeavily influenced by zine culture, Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer note that such

editorial decisions reference teen and women’s interest magazines’ use of categorieslike “Back to School” and “Sex and Body” to explore their feminist implications. For

example, Bitch magazine organizes its issues around themes like “Tough,” “Red,” or“Underground.”1 This allows contributors to elaborate upon the myth of the strongblack woman (Harris), the media panic around boyhood associations with the color

pink (Nathman), and the implications of female pop stars’ creating anthems thatcapitalize upon their queer fan base (Elmore). Such curatorial decisions inform

playlists, which allow producers to posit new arguments from others’ music.Some may identify feminist activism and critique with petitions, boycotts, and

protests. Yet there are always aural dimensions to such activities that affectindividuals’ engagement with various causes, as well as their capacity to interact and

congregate with others. For example, during the Occupy L.A. protests performanceartists Elana Mann and Juliana Snapper held handmade ears to “show bystanders that

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listening was going on” during the demonstrations (Wagley). Their efforts were

influenced by composer Pauline Oliveros’s concept of deep listening, which describeshow music cannot be reduced to the composition itself without critical attentiontoward the intersections among producers, listeners, and their shared environment

(Rodgers). Barry Shank observes that chants, rallying cries, and folk songs allowprotestors to perform their political identifications while recruiting others to their

cause. He argues that anthems unite citizens as political actors. First, an anthem musthave “a central object of identification that is clearly articulated” (43). Many anthems

serve as expressions of patriotism or religious faith. Yet the porous nature of suchappeals toward a central object facilitates the anthem’s second quality. In order for it

“to function as effectively as possible, it should be sung together” (ibid.). Playlists usesongs’ choruses and other lyrical passages to establish or reclaim them as anthems

upon which to raise political objections.Tia DeNora uses “latching” to describe music’s utility as an orientation point in

everyday life, claiming that “the creaturely ability to locate and anticipate

environmental features engenders a kind of corporeal or embodied security” (85).These relational patterns coincide with sociologist Antoine Hennion’s definition of

music lovers as “users of music” who actively perform their affiliation with variousmusical practices and scenes. As a result, music “is not the end result of a passion . . .

but a means, like the orchestra, voice, instrumental technique and the stage, ofreaching certain states” (9). Music signifies expressions of frustration and hope that

playlists can heighten, particularly in producers’ use of musicians’ voices, lyrics,instrumentation, and generic appeals as resources for identification and buildingalliances.

For Simon Frith, music’s significance to identity formation is as a “cultural formbest able to cross borders—sounds carry across fences and walls and oceans, across

classes, races, and nations—and to define places: in clubs, scenes, and raves, listeningon headphones, radio, and in the concert hall, we are only where the music takes us”

(276). While music “is not in itself revolutionary or reactionary,” it is “a source ofstrong feelings” that is socially coded and has a disruptive cultural effect “only

through its impact on individuals” (277). Yet “this impact is obdurately social” (ibid.).However, Shank argues that the social aspects of music’s production and reception

frequently reveal the “complex and mobile structures of impermanent relationships—the sonic interweaving of tones and beats, upper harmonics, and contrastingtimbres—that model the experience of belonging to a community not of unity but of

difference” (1). Such claims coincide with Lawrence Grossberg’s treatment of rock as aset of resources for strategic empowerment. He describes each network that forms

from it as an “affective alliance” or “an organization of concrete material practices andevents, cultural forms and social experience which both opens up and structures the

space of our affective investments in the world” (227). Though Grossberg focuses onwhite male youth and their hegemonic associations with rock during the 1980s, his

work provides a useful conceptual framework for analyzing how feminist and queercommunities use playlists as a form of outreach online. As a result, playlists also

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reinforce DeNora’s claim that music is “not a ‘force’ like gravity or wave power. It is

rather a potential ‘source’ of bodily powers, a resource for the generation of bodilyagency. Music is, or rather can serve as, a constitutive property of bodily being” (99)through playlist producers’ purposeful assemblage of various, often unrelated songs

into original and coherent interventions.Finally, music is also shaped by users’ engagement with specific media technologies

that aid in music’s production and reception. In his analysis of personal stereo usage,Michael Bull argues that such tools offer “a variety of strategies that enable the user to

successfully prioritize their own experience, personally, interpersonally, andgeographically” (9). As a result, contingency and risk are mediated through

technologies’ structural possibilities for organizing sound in space, as well as how theyinfluence users’ engagement with their own physical environments (10). While Bull

focuses on mobile devices and individuals’ engagements with them in public space,playlist producers similarly harness the technological affordances and limitations ofvarious digital files, streaming services, and social media platforms as resources that

facilitate listeners’ affective responses to specific political causes and concerns.Therefore, new media technologies are instrumental in feminist and queer mixing

practices. Many scholars have considered how gender politics influence thedevelopment of technology and online communities (Castells; Balsamo; Benkler;

Moorti; Witteborn; Duffy). Playlists can demonstrate producers’ technologicalacumen. As Kearney observes in her analysis of web-based zine distributors, many

young women either use pre-designed templates for their businesses or build theirown sites after learning basic code, thus suggesting their “active participation in theconstruction of cyberspace through their practices of web design” (241). In her

analysis of Swedish indie music fans’ alternative gift economy, Nancy Baym (“TheNew Shape” 10–11) builds upon Barry Wellman’s notion of “networked

individualism” to posit that such groups demonstrate “networked collectivism”online by binding themselves together as loose collectives that identify with particular

scenes. Baym also argues that communities in a digital context require both networksupport to enable “people to feel part of a group whose members have common

interests and concerns” and emotional support to ensure “the ability to turn to othersfor comfort and security during times of stress” (Personal Connections 322). Such

practices are evident in Bitch Media’s and Homoground’s efforts to bring in guestcontributors who compile playlists to promote various projects. Some ofHomoground’s Guest Mixtapes have been curated by members of Bitch Media’s

editorial staff (“#MIXTAPE097”). In turn, Bitch Media’s web editor, Sarah Mirk(“BitchTapes: Queens”), posted a playlist in October 2013 to promote Homoground’s

Feminist Playing Cards project. Thus, networked collectivism relies upon cultivatingattention online. In her analysis of the posthumous revival of Michael Jackson’s

catalogue, Devon Powers argues that “[a]s a mode of perceptual activity, a form ofvalue, and a precipitate of the circulation of culture, attention is useful not just in

supplying innovative explanations for how and why music gains prominence at anyparticular historical moment but also in taking seriously the numerous scholarly calls

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to factor the notion of circulation more thoroughly into our analyses” (5). Such

consideration for attention invites more critical engagement with playlists’ efforts todiscover or revive artists’ musical contributions online while using them as resourcesfor political critique.

However, though these websites treat playlists as extensions of feminist and queeractivism and media production, they are shaped by streaming platforms’ various

regulations. Jonathan Sterne argues that a file format “denotes a whole range ofdecisions that affect the look, feel, experience, and workings of a medium. It also

names a set of rules according to which a technology can operate” (7). Such decisionsare embedded in these playlists, which are assembled from various digital files. They

are also supported by streaming sites and tend not to be available for download,abiding by Eric Harvey’s claim that while “the idea of streaming music pre-dates

recordings, the industry’s investment in today’s technology is designed in large part towrench back control via unlimited access after a decade of ceding power to mp3-downloading fans” (“Station”). This restricts users’ engagement and signals the

recording industry’s shifting definitions of listenership. Tim J. Anderson argues that“the audience has been replaced with a new actor called the end user” who is essential

in aiding the music business’s transition “from an economy based on the sale ofphysical goods to a service-based economy” (15). These playlist communities exist

within these regimes of power.As a result, the work behind playlist production is often obscured and contingent.

Because playlists tend to be presented as products rather than as components of largerlabor processes, listeners are not immediately privy to the resources contributors mustacquire and the work they must complete to make these playlists available. In this

regard, feminist and queer communities operate within a set of distinct socialnetworks online that are influenced by digital media’s contributions to communities’

tenuous connectedness, labor’s liquidity in everyday life, and the devaluation ofmaterial compensation in exchange for exposure and self-promotion (Papacharissi;

Gregg; Deuze; Andrejevic; Terranova). These sites rely upon forms of immaterial labor(Cote and Pybus), which affects the playlist producers and the recording artists whose

music serves as raw material. Musicians often maintain a social media presencethrough Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Bandcamp that can be strengthened by

playlists’ attention. Many scholars note the increasing responsibilities placed uponindependent and mainstream musicians to represent themselves as entrepreneursonline (Harvey, “Same”; Anderson; Morris). These playlists are not innocent of those

expectations. Nonetheless, such mixing practices initiate feminist outreach andcritique. In the following case study, Bitch Media and Homoground manipulate

streaming platforms’ affordances and restrictions by using a cultural feministapproach to crafting playlists that champions women’s musical contributions (D’Acci;

Van Zoonen). Both playlist series also use themes as an organizational framework forcritique. For example, in August 2014 Bitch Media and Homoground posted playlists

from the executive director of a Portland-based nonprofit youth organization and theeditor of a New York-based zine to critique sexual harassment.

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Curating a “Feminist Response” to Sexual Harassment

Andi Zeisler and Lisa Jervis launched Bitch magazine in January 1996. Originally, thequarterly publication—whose lo-fi aesthetic and third-wave reclamation of

femininity and popular culture revealed the staff ’s indebtedness to zine productionand riot grrrl—was available in print only at select nonprofit organizations and

independent retailers and distributors. In 2009, Bitchmade the transition from a printmagazine to a multimedia enterprise by creating the Bitch Media website. Themagazine was absorbed into this venture, which allowed the staff to republish and

archive featured articles and excerpts from each issue for promotional purposes. Thewebsite also allowed the publication the ability to provide more up-to-the-minute

commentary on feminist issues in politics and popular culture through limited blogseries, ongoing columns, podcasts, interviews, and other types of audio-visual

material in order to initiate and maintain reader interest in ways the magazine’slimited annual output could not.

The BitchTapes series is an integral part of the site’s identity, as it reinforces itsmission to disseminate a “Feminist Response to Pop Culture” (“About Us”).

Originally, playlists were assembled by the magazine’s editorial staff. An early playlistwas put together by Kelsey Wallace, the publication’s web editor at the time. The“Gender-Bendy Covers Edition” playlist focuses on covers performed by artists whose

gender and sexual identity do not correspond with that of the songs’ originators.Wallace’s description of the Fiery Furnaces’ cover of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood

(This Bird Has Flown)” gives “[b]onus points to the fabulous Eleanor Friedberger [theindie pop outfit’s lead singer and principal songwriter] for not switching up the

gender pronouns (and for increasing the song’s overall weirdness)”. Throughout heraccompanying post, Wallace highlights how changing the vocalist’s gender alters the

original song’s message or intent. For example, in her description of Nancy Sit’s coverof rock and roll singer Bobby Vee’s 1967 hit “Come BackWhen You GrowUp,”Wallacenotes that the Hong Kong-based singer does not engage in “pronoun preservation” as

Friedberger does on “Norwegian Wood” (ibid.). But Wallace compares Vee’s originalcomposition to Sit’s adaptation, arguing that, while Vee’s version is “smarmy and

patronizing” in its upbraiding of a female subject, Sit “just sounds like she’s beingpractical” when she commands the male subject in her cover to grow up (ibid.). At the

end of her post, Wallace encourages readers to offer suggestions for other cover songsthat engage in gender-bending. Bitch Media’s readership accepted the invitation.

Commenters recommended Tender Forever’s queer cover of pop star JustinTimberlake’s 2005 single “My Love,” New Zealand fringe singer-songwriter Darcy

Clay’s version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” (a counterpoint to Wallace’s selection of JackWhite’s cover), folk singer Joan Baez’s take on the Band’s “The Night They Drove OldDixie Down,” and Canadian punk outfit the Clicks’ interpretation of Timberlake’s

“Cry Me a River.” More than 200 playlists are now a part of the BitchTapes collection.As the series developed, Bitch Media included compilations from various grassroots

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activists and independent media producers, in addition to the magazine’s interns,

freelance contributors, and editorial staff.The BitchTapes series also gave the publication opportunities to extend

conversations initiated in the magazine and website about specific feminist concerns.

For example, Bitch’s “Tough” issue included Roxanna Asgarian’s article about femaletruck drivers’ efforts to eradicate sexual harassment in the workplace through legal

action, as well as coalition-building through online spaces like the Real Women inTrucking (RWIT) blog forum. That same summer of 2014, Bitch Media ran a post

about news media’s shifting coverage about catcalling by Holly Kearl, author of StopStreet Harassment: Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming for Women and founder

of advocacy group Stop Street Harassment. It was within this context that Rock ‘n’Roll Camp for Girls’ executive director Beth Wooten’s “Smashing Patriarchy Is Self-

Care” was added to the BitchTapes collection in August 2014. Wooten offered thefollowing explanation for what motivated her to create this compilation:

there have also been some *sun’s out bummed out* moments for me & comradesnear & dear [over this past summer, when the camp is most active]. StreetHarassment in particular has been on my mind. Here’s a selection of solid jams thathelped me out this summer: songs of trying þ going on, on, on þ validating rage,as well as choice faves from my RnRC4G Gender & Music workshop.

While Wooten’s playlist recognizes obscure soul and country songs from the ’60s and’70s, it focuses on reggae and girl groups’ influence on post-punk during the early

1980s. A number of Wooten’s selections emphasize groove, push the bass high into themix, and feature angular or parenthetical guitar melodies and distortion as

accompaniment. Many of the songs’ vocalists have a pinched, gleefully amateurishtonal quality and a sing-song delivery that is evocative of schoolyard chants and

nursery rhymes yet also offers an air of intimacy to the recordings. There are somemale vocals on “Smashing Patriarchy.” A hype man appears briefly at the beginning ofa remix of the Dixie Cups’ “Iko Iko.” Guitarist Paul Foad participates in the call-and-

response chorus to Au Pairs’ “It’s Obvious.” Dan Byers offers backing vocals onPortland rock band Sister Palace’s “American Flower.” But Wooten’s playlist prioritizes

women’s voices.It is worth noting that 8tracks hosts BitchTapes. Launched in 2006, the streaming

service requires playlists to be built from individual mp3 and AAC files (“About”).8tracks attempts to set itself apart from mainstream services like Spotify and Beats by

evoking the independent tape trade’s constructed authenticity. As the organizationclaims in its mission statement, “handcrafted music programming trumps algorithms.

Think radio in the 1970s, mixtapes in the 1980s, and DJ culture of the 1990s” (ibid.).8tracks also identifies as “a non-interactive internet radio service that has elected tooperate under the compulsory license for webcasting established in the Digital

Millennium Copyright Act of 1998” (“Licensing”). 8tracks’ compulsory license withASCAP, BMI, and SESAC for the public performance of musical works allows it to

function as a legal music-sharing network and gives users access to recordings that

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have been released to the public. This covers the transmission of copyrighted

recordings, as well as the royalties that the service pays to SoundExchange, which“collects sound recording performance royalties and distributes [them] to recordingartists and labels for use of their music through non-interactive streaming” (“Music

Royalties”).Despite 8track’s professed values, two aspects of the service help shape BitchTapes’

production and reception, and the aesthetic features and rhetorical strategies ofWooten’s playlist in particular. First, 8tracks limits how many songs can be skipped in

a sequence before requiring listeners to go through it in order. This debars users fromtime-shifting through a playlist as they could with a cassette, the format used to signify

the collection’s do-it-yourself spirit. Second, 8tracks requires users to upload music onlossy digital formats that reduce the data required to represent recordings as files.

Though AACs improve upon mp3s’ compromised fidelity, both formats usecompression to remove information in order to minimize the size of individual files.

As a result, the sound quality on “Smashing Patriarchy” is rough-edged and

inconsistent. In addition, 8tracks requires listeners to engage with the playlist asWooten sequenced it, which enhances its argumentative effectiveness. For example,

the playlist’s transitions between individual songs are often marked by a persistenthissing sound. This could have resulted from the songs’ digital transfer from analog

formats and the instability of older master recordings, as many of the individual trackswere originally recorded on vinyl during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Some transitions are

marked by clear shifts in volume between recordings. One notable example is the cutbetween Hollywood Jills’ “He Makes Me So Mad,” which Rhino Records transferredonto CD as part of their One Kiss Can Lead to Another box set, to a recording of the

Bloods’ “Undercover Nation” from Lizzie Borden’s 1983 cinema verite science fictionfeature, Born in Flames. Some sequences have abrupt transitions. Little Ann’s “Who

Are You Trying to Fool” into the B-52s’ “Legal Tender,” Betty Harris’s “Break in theRoad” to TV Mama Jean’s “Women’s Liberation,” and the Dixie Cups’ “Iko Iko” into

Au Pairs’ “It’s Obvious” all contain audible breaks and interruptions from one song tothe next that destabilize the playlist’s flow. By contrast, some sequences are

demarcated by noticeably long pauses. The transition from reggae duo Althea &Donna’s 1978 hit “Uptown Top Ranking” to the Bobbettes’ controversial 1960 single

“I Shot Mr. Lee” includes multiple seconds of silence.While the playlist’s sound may result from asynchronous format restrictions and

restoration practices, such faults lend an urgency and candor to “Smashing

Patriarchy.” These attributes are reinforced by the implicit political messagesembedded in the various lyrical passages of individual songs. Not all of the songs

explicitly address harassment as a persistent annoyance, disruption, and threat towomen’s and girls’ daily lives. But they accumulate such meanings when sequenced

together in a playlist specifically critiquing harassment that was curated by theexecutive director of the Portland chapter of an international nonprofit organization

that began in 2001 to empower “young girls through rock music production” (Giffort573).

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“Smashing Patriarchy” opens with “Try,” a 1980 single from British post-punk

group Delta 5. In their brief career, the Leeds-based ensemble was influential for itscavernous bass sound, as well as its feminist approach to expressing women’sfrustrations over struggles for gender parity within the confines of heterosexual

romance and urban dwelling. The group’s efforts were recuperated in the mid-2000swhen Kill Rock Stars re-released the group’s full-length album and a handful of

singles—including “Try”—on a comprehensive best-of collection. On “Try” leadsinger Julz Sale expresses impatience over another person’s misrecognition of her. The

lyrics keep the nature of the relationship ambiguous. Yet the chorus’s abstract qualitiescan produce new meanings through repetition. Sale’s meditation on the phrase “you

don’t see what I see” gestures toward perceptual differences between men and womenthat produce distinct experiences and complicated power dynamics. Sale also

elaborates on these concerns by connecting them to other lyrical sentiments. In thefirst verse, she reinforces the chorus with the lyric “I don’t want to be a problem,”while on verse two she admonishes the subject of her address with the claim that “[y]

ou want to hear echoes.” Such lyrics hint at the gendered expectations placed uponwomen to adhere to normative definitions of femininity by demonstrating gentility

and complying with men’s desires. More importantly for the purposes of this playlist,the chorus implicitly evokes a political issue—in this case, harassment against women

and girls—that is frequently ignored in public life or is often legible only as suspicionof survivors’ virtue.

Many of the songs on Wooten’s playlist also express longing for escape and usevarious sonic elements as reinforcement. While Jamaican pop singer Millie Small’s1967 cover of Bob Marley’s “Wings of a Dove” includes lyrics that wish for the return

of a geographically distant lover, the song still articulates feelings of helplessness andlonging for respite from an uncertain world. The chorus’s sentiment—“If I had the

wings of a dove/I would fly, fly away/fly away and be at rest”—is also inflected withSmall’s brittle, piercing delivery that suggests a desire to flee from upsetting

surroundings and conditions. Much of the frustration about men’s authority on“Smashing Patriarchy” is expressed through songs about women’s anger over men’s

displays of thoughtlessness in heterosexual relationships, as on “I Hate Men” and “HeMakes Me So Mad” from country singer Little Carolyn Sue and girl group Hollywood

Jills respectively. Sometimes sonic dissonance heightens the affective register fromwhich these verbal missives are delivered. For example, on Betty Harris’s “Break in theRoad,” the ’60s-era Miami-based soul singer’s bitterness that “[y]ou don’t care how

much I hurt” is punctuated by squeals of guitar feedback to represent her pain. DianeRenay’s “Watch Out Sally!” includes the lyrics “Hey Tony, what you doing? Don’t leave

me here alone” and “Gotta find a guy to drive me home” to express a young woman’sanxiety after her date strands her at someone else’s party. Renay makes contrasting use

of yelps and whispers to vocalize her mounting dread, a compositional decisionreinforced by the feedback-laden spurts of guitar noise that follow from each verse.

Over the course of the playlist, the songs’ lyrics emphasize overt political change.For example, TV Mama Jean’s “Women’s Liberation” advocates equal pay and

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women’s rights to leisure time and autonomy, a position underlined by the song’s

chorus, “Liberation, liberation—women want to be free/freedom, freedom—sayfreedom for you and for me.” Though decidedly more pessimistic and critical aboutsystemic inequality, British post-punk group Au Pairs’ “It’s Obvious” explores how

gender differences reinforce patriarchy by equating the power dynamics within sexualpartnerships to the workplace by repeating the simple chorus “You’re equal but

different,” with vocalist Lesley Woods’s phrasing growing increasingly bitter andimpatient with each iteration. Finally, the emotional centerpiece of Wooten’s playlist

is Red Krayola’s 1980 single “Born in Flames.” Inspired by writer James Baldwin andsung by former X-Ray Spex saxophonist and Essential Logic founder Lora Logic, the

verses cast resistance against patriarchal oppression in an optimistic light, noting that“[n]or did their own brutality ever bring us to our knees” and “[i]nto the darkness of

the past we’ve thrown the chains of the ruling class/The struggle of exploited masseshas broken the oppressor’s lash.” To strengthen the playlist’s thematic preoccupationwith women’s harassment, “Born in Flames” is also the theme song to Lizzie Borden’s

film, which narrativizes the partnership between two feminist activist groups—oneled by a white lesbian, another by a black woman—to combat the rise of sexual

violence against women in New York City. This song also contextualizes some of themore hopeful moments nested within “Smashing Patriarchy.” For example, Delta 5’s

“Try” is followed by “On, On, On” from new wave act the Tom Tom Club. Over aloping beat and backing harmonies from her three sisters, lead singer Tina

Weymouth pledges her support to an unnamed entity. At first, it seems that theobject of her devotion is a lover. However, the chorus proclaims “On and on, we willcome/There are scores of us,” suggesting an implicit collectivism in her address. This

is reinforced by the third verse’s opening line. Weymouth widens her narrow focus toa larger group by proclaiming, “You are the youth/we’re with you/We’re living proof

of what we can do.” The lyric reads as a tacit acknowledgment of Wooten’sorganization and its mission to provide a space for self-empowerment for girls

through music production and literacy. The use of music as a resource for self-empowerment and critical intervention against women’s and girls’ oppression also

informs the playlists included in Homoground’s Guest Mixtapes series.Two years after Bitch Media’s launch, Lynn Casper founded Homoground while

earning a living as a social media strategist for Working Films, a New York-basedindependent production company that specializes in short-form and full-lengthpolitical documentary films. Using the tagline “same ground, different sound” to

define its ethos, the Brooklyn- and Seattle-based multimedia site promotes “equalityand visibility for all people through music and art while maintaining a creative

medium for queer and allied artists and music lovers worldwide” (“About”).Homoground addresses this goal in multiple ways. First, the staff produces an hour-

long podcast through Mixcloud that focuses on queer musicians and artists who livein major and mid-size cities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, andWestern

Europe. This also serves as a way to notify and update its followers about various acts’touring schedules. They also host HomogroundTV, a YouTube channel that features

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artists’ music videos as well as concert and interview footage. With the aid of

crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Homoground programs andsponsors multimedia events and festivals in order to support queer feminist musicalacts and scenes. The site also extends its web presence through merchandise like its

Feminist Playing Cards project, which commissions visual artists to createillustrations of recording artists who influenced feminism’s development. But

Homoground’s Guest Mixtapes series is the site’s cornerstone. Like BitchTapes, thiscollection of a few hundred playlists allows Homoground to reach out to various

activist and grassroots media organizations.The same month that Wooten’s “Smashing Patriarchy” compilation went live on

Bitch Media, Homoground uploaded a playlist that critiqued sexual harassment.It was part of a series of playlists from contributors at Hoax Zine, a “bi-annual queer

feminist compilation zine that aims to create a space to analyze the feminisms of oureveryday lives” (“#MIXTAPE106”). Though Homoground prioritizes the coverage ofmusical subcultures over critical treatises against systematic inequality, the site’s

emphasis on playlists’ discursive functions provides some insight into howHomoground approaches activism. Several Guest Mixtapes recognize counterpublics’

critical reclamation of the street. This is accomplished by using events likePhiladelphia’s Phreak ‘N Queer Music and Arts Festival (“MIXTAPE104”), resources

like She Shreds magazine (“MIXTAPE027;” “MIXTAPE079”), and advocacy groupslike New York’s Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (“MIXTAPE045;” “MIX-

TAPE084”) as subjects upon which to build playlists that challenge the oppression offeminists and/or queer people.

In August 2014, Hoax editor sari released the zine’s second compilation for

Homoground. It coincided with the publication’s tenth issue, “Feminisms andEmbodiments.” It featured poems, short stories, essays, and illustrations that explored

issues related to the body and the voice as experienced by trans, black, immigrant, andasexual women, as well as survivors of cancer, disordered eating, and sexual assault.

sari’s playlist, entitled “Don’t Talk to Me,” is “dedicated to girls and non-binary babeswho want a solid stream of bitch-face inspiring songs to play on their daily trips out of

the house” (“#MIXTAPE106”). It was inspired by sari’s own experiences as a long-time domestic violence safe house advocate. Thus sari’s playlist explicitly connects

feelings of embodiment within feminist communities to the gendered realities ofstreet harassment and thus seeks to empower listeners by providing them with musicto help “return ugly looks in public, dance in grocery store aisles, and feel tough

enough to deal with . . . other interruptions that don’t deserve our time” (ibid.).Mixcloud hosts Homoground’s Guest Mixtapes series. It allows users to upload

mp3, AAC, and M4A files that can either be compressed through AAC coding or beconverted through Apple’s lossless format (“Upload”). This allows for digital

compression while retaining much (if not all) of a file’s sonic fidelity. As a result, userscan upload content without size restrictions. This has made the site attractive for

podcasters and radio hosts, as well as for the many deejays, artists, and otherrecording-industry professionals who collaborate with Homoground. The service

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does not allow users downloading capability, as the platform’s license allows only for

content streaming (“Mixcloud Founder Claims”). But the site does require users toprovide correct metadata so that it can honor musicians’ royalties rights (Scott).Unlike 8tracks, Mixcloud allows users to time-shift. Its format requirements can also

offer more seamless transitions between songs. For sari’s playlist, this helps emphasizerhythm’s compositional and rhetorical significance in making listeners want to dance

as a resource that allows them to object to the hovering presence of sexual harassmentin their daily lives.

sari’s ten-song playlist meaningfully engages with mainstream British and AmericanR&B and hip hop from women of color during the late ’90s and early 2000s, a time

period which integrated digital recording techniques into popular music’s productionaesthetics. The songs in the playlist foreground percussion as the dominant

compositional element. Many of the songs use direct address by foregrounding hiphop’s emphases on spoken word, rhythmic vocal cadences, and first- and second-person pronoun usage. They also periodically dispense with instrumentation

altogether to foreground the voice. For example, RoxXxan’s “Guerilla” ends with theperformer rapping a cappella. Such prioritization of rhythm, rapping, and chanting

also evokes the vocal sensibilities of schoolyard taunts that shapeWooten’s playlist. But“Don’t Talk to Me” also adopts a distinctly confrontational vocal tone in order to

challenge harassment.Many of the songs on sari’s playlist advocate women’s critical reclamation of the

public sphere. sari opens their2 playlist with Santigold’s “Girls,” which includes thelyric “Here we are all trying to make ends meet/Got no cash got no money but werunning the streets.” Rye Rye makes similar ovations of dominance and entitlement

in “Gimme Dat” when she boasts that “I’m a put on my crown, now/shake ’em downto the ground now.” Appeals for women’s self-actualization, drive, and insistence

upon ownership of space in public life inform the selection of RoxXxan’s “Guerilla,”Eve’s “Grind or Die,” and M.I.A.’s “Bring the Noize.” Male voices are present on

“Don’t Talk to Me,” including the hype man who introduces Blaque’s “I’m Good,” thelooped mantras of “gimme dat beat one time” and “grind or die” on Rye Rye and

Eve’s songs, and rapper Cakes Da Killa’s performative queer aggression on “GoodiesGoodies” as the playlist’s lone male-identified artist. Nonetheless, sari’s compilation

foregrounds women’s vocalized expressions of anger, disapproval, criticism, andpride. Often, the few male vocals that do exist accompany the female rappers’objections, thus serving as a springboard upon which to launch their grievances.

By contrast, Da Killa’s presence suggests a loose affinity between women and queermen who experience harassment from straight adversaries as a result of society’s

entrenched misogyny and homophobia. In addition, the playlist grows increasinglyloud and discordant, providing an aural representation of the acceleration of intense

feelings that result from enduring street harassment as a series of vivid yet dailytraumatic experiences.

In particular, the four-song sequence that follows the lead track—beginning withTLC’s “No Scrubs,” moving on into P!nk’s “There You Go,” continuing with Blaque’s

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“I’m Good,” and concluding with Destiny’s Child’s “Bug-A-Boo”—emphasizes

rhythm and the aural register of female vocalists’ dissatisfaction with and rejection ofmen’s deficiencies as romantic prospects. In doing so, the playlist makes legiblefeminists’ anger over their own subjugation at the hands of men. Much like Wooten’s

“Smashing Patriarchy” playlist for BitchTapes, this sequence uses lyrics’ anthemiccapabilities to engender solidarity through expressions of anger, rejection, and

dismay. On “No Scrubs,” TLC berates a man for “hangin’ out the passenger’s side ofhis best friend’s ride, trying to holler at me.” Blaque’s “I’m Good” builds its chorus

around the repeated phrase “I don’t like what you’re kicking, son.” Finally, the wordychorus to Destiny’s Child’s “Bug-A-Boo” is alternately behind or ahead of the beat.

This gives the song a nervous quality that is reinforced with lyrics that express awoman’s fear over a man’s use of mobile technology to stalk her. sari’s inclusion of

Neon Jungle’s “Trouble” reinforces such sentiments. Within the context of the Britishgirl group’s 2014 debut album, Welcome to the Jungle, the chorus to this boisteroussong boasts the quartet’s ability to wreak havoc on the dance floor. Yet, when it follows

other songs’ explicit critiques of harassment and emotional violence, the lyric “I don’tlook for trouble, but trouble looks for me/And it’s been waiting around corners since I

was 17” instead brings to mind the darkened alleyways that obscure predators fromfemale pedestrians.

On “Don’t Talk to Me,” sari re-contextualizes music by accumulating referencesand meanings through purposeful sequencing. This mirrors Wooten’s transform-

ation of Diane Renay’s 1964 hit “Watch Out Sally!” from a kitschy pop song to asobering recollection of a young woman’s struggle to find a safe ride home bywedging it alongside selections of austere post-punk and gritty soul music. As a

result, sari highlights the ambivalence often buried within acclaim of empowermentthrough songs that express marginalized groups’ feelings of vulnerability and

endangerment in both public and private spaces through misogynistic behavior likestalking and emotional or physical abuse. The playlist closes with Brooklyn-based

synth pop outfit Light Asylum’s “Heart of Dust” and Crystal Castles’ “Doe Deer.”“Heart of Dust” references Kate Bush’s “Get Out of My House” by quoting the

British singer’s lyrics and tortured phrasing in its chorus. In addition, Bush’s songrecasts Jack Torrance’s brutalized wife Wendy as the protagonist of Stephen King’s

The Shining to protest against domestic violence (Simper). Such allusions enrichLight Asylum’s gory imagery, most notably in vocalist Shannon Funchess’s requestfor her lover to lie “face down in the river.” “Doe Deer” metaphorizes vocalist Alice

Glass’s anxieties as a female subject and her anger over the lack of control she hasover male objectification through the song’s repetition of one word: “deathray.”

Ultimately, such sequencing decisions indicate how feminists use music to claimoptimism, ambivalence, and indignation as constitutive resources for dismantling

patriarchy.

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Countercurrent to the Stream

This article argues that playlists are meaningful resources within feminist and queercounterpublics. Though it focuses on two websites’ mixing practices, Bitch Media and

Homoground exist within larger communities that create playlists as forms ofcommentary and outreach. Since its launch in September 2010, Rookie, an online

publication aimed at teenage girls, has included its “Friday Playlist” series as one ofthe site’s consistent features. It is curated through 8tracks by the publication’scontributors and staff. Many of the playlists are organized by particular genres,

holidays, or rites of passage. However, some of the playlists have feminist implications.Many are tributes to fictional female characters identified by Rookie contributors as

resources for young women’s feminist self-identification. There may be no explicitfeminist commentary in Van Halen’s “Runnin’ with the Devil” or Gerry Rafferty’s

“Baker Street.” But their associations with Freaks and Geeks’ Lindsay Weir and TheSimpsons’ Lisa Simpson take on new meanings alongside Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen”

and Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” which more explicitly address the normativegender politics challenged by these characters (Cills; Fitzpatrick). Such playlists also

coexist with more overtly feminist tributes to the riot grrrl movement (Kuehnert) andwomen’s contributions in hip hop (Hopper).

In addition, women’s interest blog Jezebel launched their “Very Specific Playlists”

series through Spotify in March 2015. Among the more humorously themed playlistswere Jia Tolentino’s “A Self-Care Playlist for the Sensual Woman Smoking Weed in

Her Shower.” It did not prioritize female musicians’ work. However, Tolentinocontextualizes her decision to pair Son Lux’s “Lost It to Trying” and Alex Metric’s

“Safe with You” with Ryn Weaver’s “Octahate” and Jojo’s “Too Little Too Late” withthe following scenario: “suddenly you’re home after a day that felt like it would go on

forever, and you’ve got this playlist cued up and ready because some random bloggerput it up somewhere, and there’s no better way to redeem female multitasking from itssecond-shift misery other than to only do it with things you love”. Thus, Tolentino’s

post critiques the digital economy’s gendered labor expectations through her appealto politicize the pleasure and leisure time of Jezebel’s readership.

Finally, some communities use playlists as extensions of direct political advocacywork. Since 2009, the Chicago-based Chances Dances deejay collective have uploaded

playlists from their monthly dance parties online through Libsyn in order to engendera sense of queer community within the city’s historical dance scene.3 Chances Dances

uses playlists as resources to help fulfill their mission “to create a safe space for allgender expressions by bringing together the varied LGBTIQ communities of

Chicago . . . by offering a unique opportunity for queer artistic expression”(“Fierceness”). Since 2008, the collective has given out “the Critical Fierceness Grant”biannually. The award—which is a sum of up to $500—is given to queer artists in

need of financial assistance. In 2012, they expanded their philanthropic efforts toinclude the Mark Aguhar Memorial Grant. Named in tribute to Aguhar, a mixed-

media artist and graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s MFA program, the

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annual $1,000 grant supports “queer women-identified and trans-feminine artists of

color” in order to help develop opportunities “for personal exploration, communitydevelopment, and radical change through art” (ibid.). Past recipients includephotographer Rebecca Mir and mixed-media artist Rami George. Chances Dances

also serves coalitions like the Transgender Oral History Project and theTransformative Justice Law Project of Illinois, a state-based advocacy group that

provides legal services to “poor and street-based transgender people,” giving priorityto people of color, youth, undocumented citizens, and people living with HIV and

AIDS (“Who We Are”). The collective’s dance parties help support such initiatives,which re-circulate online as playlists.

Such efforts are indicative of feminist counterpublics’ utility and potential. Theyhelp make legible the formation of discursive, subcultural music scenes peopled by

feminist- and queer-identified artist communities and activist groups. Bitch Mediaand Homoground’s primary motivation is to help make legible feminist and queerindependent artists who demonstrate minimal interest in working within the

mainstream, as well as commercial artists who serve as feminist fan objects. Thus,these playlists align with Nancy Fraser’s vision of counterpublics as a “variegated array

of journals, bookstores, publishing companies, film and video distribution networks,lecture series, research centers, academic programs, conferences, conventions,

festivals, and local meeting places” (67). In doing so, these playlists mobilize music asresources that extend feminist and queer communities’ collaborative efforts in activist

work and grassroots media production on- and offline.

Disclosure Statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/orpublication of this article.

Notes

[1] Sassy’s influence on Bitch magazine also manifests in the publications’ shared personnel. Forexample, Andi Zeisler was an intern at Sassy before co-founding Bitch.

[2] sari uses plural pronouns as a means of self-identification in the post that accompanies “Don’tTalk to Me.”

[3] Chicago’s status as a dance music hub is beyond this article’s purview. Several Chicago-baseddeejays and clubs receive credit for developing house and originating footwork, a subgenre thatgrew out of breakdancing. House, like Chances Dances, is also associated with queer clubculture (Sheffield; Yenigun and Glasspiegel; Raymer; Hoffman).

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Notes on Contributor

Alyxandra Vesey is a feminist media scholar who uses industry and productionstudies approaches to explore the relationship(s) between gender, labor, and music.

Her dissertation analyses identity and music-based intermediary practices in post-network television. Her work has appeared in Feminist Media Studies, Cinema Journal,

Studies in French Cinema, and Saturday Night Live and American TV. She is also aneditor for Antenna and The Velvet Light Trap.

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