How Jazz Made Me a Feminist
Illustration by Allie McDermott Brown.
My Journey with Feminism:
How Jazz Made Me a Feminist
Feminism and I have not had an easy ride together. But I suppose that is appropriate - being a woman is not an easy ride either.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a very privileged, white, middle-class woman. Being a woman is the only thing I have ever suffered for. I have never experienced discrimination based on my race, religion, socio-economic background, sexuality, or anything else. Only my gender. Perhaps this means I am not qualified to talk about injustice; I do not pretend to speak with any authority on the subject. All I offer is my opinion, solely based on my experiences, my journey with feminism, and feminism’s journey with me. I hope that is enough.
Growing up, I actively defined myself as “not a feminist.” In a hopeless and somewhat ironic attempt to make myself more attractive to the opposite sex, I would denounce girls who stood up for themselves against boys. Any hint of feminism in high school made boys think girls were prickly and difficult; toughness was frowned upon by the upper echelons of the male student body. An even slightly politicised or opinionated debate initiated by a girl was met with a chorus of “here she goes again.” So, I relinquished my backbone to make myself more acceptable to boys. I wanted to be unproblematic - I became a doormat. A human wet wipe. Pick your metaphor.
Cobble together my spinelessness, my willingness to throw other members of my gender under the bus for male attention, and my Protestant family background, and the result was a passive and uninformed early adolescent girl.
Not wishing to delve into the minefield that is a discussion about religion, I will say only this about my church-going childhood: my family and I went to church every Sunday, and I participated in other churchy activities a couple of times a week, with the other ill-informed and politically unconscious churchlings of my own age. My church was fairly liberal (as far as churches go), but in the sheltered suburbs of Greater Manchester, going to church from an early age puts you a bubble of privilege and social conservatism. Not only was I ignorantly unaware of the wider feminist debate, I could not even recognise gender inequality within my own community. It took me years to notice the ingrained prejudices of some members of the church; one member of the leadership, who shall remain nameless, openly professed his opinion that women were not fit for positions of authority within the church. Looking back, I am outraged that I let such blatant sexism pass me by unchallenged, but at the time, I did not see it. Even if I had seen it, I doubt I would have done anything about it.
So, by 15 years old, I was sheltered, ignorant and totally removed from a feminist narrative that would come to dominate and direct my adult life. Yet at 15, I encountered the first event which put me on a path towards my feminist awakening. And I was utterly unprepared and unequipped to handle it.
The incident occurred on a drunken night out in Newcastle with my older sister (I would at this point like to officially state that I do not condone nor promote underage drinking, although it is a lot of fun and very relevant to this story).
This was the night I discovered the Jäger bomb. It was fantastic. A whirlwind romance with my first alcoholic beverage that wasn’t a stolen sip of wine from someone else’s glass. I probably only had a couple of drinks, but the faint-hearted and lightweight 15-year-old me thought I was such a rebel - so old and mature beyond my years. The sweet alcohol gave me a thrill that I had never experienced. It also made me let my guard down.
I will pause here just to note that a 15-year-old girl should never have to have her “guard up” in the first place, but that is the world we live in, and if it were any different then this article would be surplus to requirement.
That night was the first time I was a victim of sexual assault. And I say the first time, because there have been many instances, as you will come to realise throughout the course of this article. I will not share the details, as I assume many of you who have experienced the same thing will know exactly what I’m talking about. Those of you who haven’t can use your imagination.
I was only 15. Assaulted and unsure how to react, I told my boyfriend at the time, whose only response was that it was my fault. It took me a long time to realise that it wasn’t. The Jäger bombs were admittedly not wise, but anything beyond that was not my fault. I just wish I could tell 15-year-old me the same thing.
A few years later, in first year of university, someone I had called a friend made inappropriate advances towards me, locking me in a bathroom in an attempt to make me give him what he wanted, justifying his actions because I was wearing a cropped t-shirt and I “looked like I wanted it.”
A couple of months after that, a similar thing happened, but this time it was much, much worse. I blamed myself for not having learnt my lesson, and I blamed the alcohol for subduing my senses and inhibiting my ability to protest more.
Again, I was told it was my fault.
Incidentally, this all coincided with the 2017 “Me Too” movement – my first meaningful encounter with feminism. I researched and read articles about women sharing their stories of sexual assault, hoping I would find comfort in solidarity.
All I found was isolation.
The women’s stories were mainly of workplace discrimination and harassment, which was something I could not relate to (at least, not yet). Another aspect I could not bear was that the movement highlighted the suffering of victims when all I wanted was to call out the perpetrators. It felt like the focus was all wrong. I also found myself getting angry at the bravery of the women who could share their stories; I had been too ashamed of what had happened to tell anyone about it for a long time. I felt left behind by a group of women who did not seem to carry the same burden. Membership of the movement was dictated by whether or not you had the courage to share your experience. If you did not, then you were excluded.
Little did I know that these criticisms of “Me Too” were relatively mainstream and that many women also felt isolated by the movement. But I did not yet understand the depth and breadth of feminism. I had only witnessed one, ostensibly performative, social media movement and presumed that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree (the apple being “Me Too: and the tree being feminism – it’s a highbrow metaphor, I know). I painted all feminist movements with the same brush having only witnessed one. I didn’t yet understand that there are various wings of feminism, like factions in a political party, and so I turned my back on the entire ideology. To me, it was simple: feminism did not support me when I needed it to.
I thought that if even serious sexual assault could not turn me into a feminist, then nothing could. First year of university passed me by and I closed my ears to tales of gender injustice. The only thing that awoke my inner feminist was the persistent discrimination and prejudice I experienced as a female saxophonist.
I love jazz. It’s something you should know about me. I just really love jazz. And even though, admittedly, jazz is a man’s world, I had always felt safe and equal in a jazz band - until recently.
I joined Edinburgh University Jazz Orchestra in first year of university on tenor saxophone and I loved it: I loved the people, I loved the music, I loved the gigs, I loved it all. But in second year, I was readmitted on baritone saxophone, a monster of a saxophone which is the same size as some of my smaller friends. It’s huge, it’s heavy and, most importantly, it’s a man’s instrument.
The amount of discrimination and prejudice I received for playing this saxophone was astronomical. Strangers, and even friends, would tell me I was too fragile, too small, too feminine to play it. I took great pride in proving them wrong, which I always did because I am bloody good at the baritone sax. Yet the presumption that my lungs were too small or my arms too weak to play the instrument I loved made me see red. I was furious.
Like I said, I just really love jazz.
It was then, and only then, that I became fully aware of, and angry about, the microaggressions and prejudices women suffer daily simply for being women. I realised that I am strong, I am competent, and I am capable of doing anything a man can do. I was on fire – I still am. Since then, I have been a feminist, through and through. When I die, clutching my all too “manly” instrument to my chest, cut me open and order an autopsy - you will see nothing but sheer and resolute desire for gender equality. My body had been attacked and objectified so many times, yet it made no difference to my political inclinations. But when my ability to do the one thing I loved most in the world was questioned on account of my gender, I snapped.
And thank God that I did.
The summer after second year I got a job on a bar during the Fringe. I was working a VIP bar, 10pm-7am (yes that’s right, I worked until 7 o’clock in the morning), 6 days a week and IT. WAS. HELL. I was overworked and underpaid. The worst part was that I was on a bar staffed with only girls. Deliberately staffed with only girls.
Upon arriving for our training, we were told never to call security, even if we felt threatened. We were told never to kick up a fuss, even if a customer was being inappropriate. We were told never to make a scene, even if obscene things were said to us, or shouted at us, which would not have been permitted in other bars. We were told to grin and bear it, because the happiness of the male VIPs was more important than the safety of the young female staff.
I didn’t do anything about it. I just did my job. A newly converted feminist at the time, I will forever carry with me the knowledge that a group of young women were treated with such contempt and I did nothing about it. Writing it down now for other people to read is my only vengeance.
They say the person you become is a direct result of the sum of your experiences. If this is true, then I cannot do anything but be a feminist; some of the most traumatic experiences of my life have been inextricably linked to, or caused by, my gender. I grew up hating feminism and yet feminism had its way with me, nonetheless.
I am now proud and sure of my womanhood, and no man can take that away from me. In fact, the only person who has ever made me doubt that was another woman: JK Rowling.
Rowling, who I used to adore, recently Tweeted: ‘‘‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?.”
Rowling implied that you can only be a woman if you menstruate. Or that you are not a woman if you don’t. A tweet that was aimed at hurting the trans community also hurt me. For the first, and probably the last time, I was in the same boat as trans women: when Rowling wrote that tweet, I hadn’t menstruated in four years, and therefore, by her definition, I was not a woman. Having my womanhood challenged by one of my former role models hurt me in a way that I thought I would never experience, and put me in a position to empathise with trans women who suffer the same thing day in and day out. Growing up in a church, I am ashamed of how little I knew about the trans community in my youth. Now I am older and slightly more aware, although I don’t pretend to understand the persistent suffering of transgender people. All I would say is that no one should be excluded from feminism. Feminism, fundamentally, is about equality; as soon as feminists start excluding others from that equality, we’ve all lost.
While I have come a long way in my feminist journey, I know that I am not a perfect feminist – no one is. I am still dealing with my imperfections: my church upbringing made me painfully unaware of the struggles of trans women, something I am attempting to rectify; my privileged, white background put me in a position to benefit from systemic racism, something which I must acknowledge and struggle against, so that I can genuinely and authentically fight for ALL women, not just white women.
But I am trying. I am trying to fight for gender equality the best way I can.
And so should you.
Lottie Needham is a fourth year student at the University of Edinburgh studying History and Politics. She is a regular author at Ensemble Magazine, and you can find more of her writing here.