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‘I Wanna Rock:’ A Critique of Gender Essentialism in Metal Music Scholarship A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In the Department of Philosophy University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Lyndsay Helfrich ©Copyright Lyndsay Helfrich, September 2017. All Rights Reserved. PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis/dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis/dissertation work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis/dissertation or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis/dissertation. Requests for permission to copy or to make other uses of materials in this thesis/dissertation in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Saskatchewan 9 Campus Drive Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 Canada OR Dean College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies University of Saskatchewan 105 Administration Place Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A2 Canada i ABSTRACT As Metal Music Studies (MMS) emerges as a field it is important that members of the field who research gender remain critical of the ways in which we do so. Protecting the autonomy of women participants in both MMS studies and in overall metal culture should be of utmost importance. This research aims to show that both general sexism within metal culture and the use of kind essentialist language serve to damage the autonomy of the women involved. As a result, unification essentialism (uniessentialism) should be the working assumption of MMS in order to avoid damaging the autonomy of women. Protecting autonomy requires more than just acknowledging any problems that exist, but rather I argue, through the use of Carol Hay’s work, that there is in fact a moral obligation to confront such harms. This obligation rests on all members of the metal community, of all genders, because it is the only way to move forward and dismantle the systems of patriarchal oppression which exist. MMS research itself is not exempt from these criticisms, as the use of kind essentialist language “others” women fans and does not properly capture their experience, making their experiences less valid. By using the works of Charlotte Witt and Rosemary Lucy Hill, I show that uniessentialism is a more productive form of gender essentialism, because it acknowledges the gendered listening experiences of metal fans and values those experiences as equal; all gendered experiences matter and no one gendered experience should be considered the norm. Uniessentialism protects the autonomy of women fans and participants in studies, and therefore should be the working assumption of MMS. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Susan Dieleman. Your door was always open whenever I ran into a problem or had questions. Your infinite patience, gentle guidance, and unwavering support have been instrumental to the completion of this degree. I am extremely grateful for your mentorship. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Leslie Howe and Dr. Peter Alward for all the constructive feedback and guidance to improve this project. Thank you to the University of Saskatchewan for the funding to complete this project, and the rest of the Philosophy Department for making this possible. My eternal thanks to Carlo Cilia for dragging me to the gym every day, being my adventure buddy, and a big part of my Saskatoon family. Your friendship means everything. Thank you to Krystl Raven for indulging my love of ice cream and colouring, and for always being there to talk me down when my lizard brain got the best of me. Special shout out to Amanda DiGioia, Dr. Charlotte Naylor Davis, and Emily Harris for being the best metal friends a girl could hope to have. Fiery Skyball is going to be the best metal band the world has seen. To M Selim Yavuz for technical support; your patience is astonishing. You have my eternal love and gratitude. Finally, I would like to thank my family. Your unconditional love and support have helped me make it through the last two years. This could not have been done without you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Permission to Use……………………………………………………………………………………..…. i. Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………..…… ii. Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..……. iii. Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………..…… iv. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………..1 1. On Not Being a Douchebag: The Obligation to Confront Sexism in Metal…………………………7 1.1. Being critical of popular culture & moral obligations to confront sexual harassment….8 1.2. Heavy metal’s gender problem……………………………………………………...……..16 2. Metal Scholarship’s Gender Essentialism Problem………………………………………..……..…37 2.1. What is Gender Essentialism?............................................................................................40 2.2. Mavis Bayton........................................................................................................................45 2.3. Deena Weinstein…………………………………………….………………………………52 3. Uniessentialism, Rosemary Lucy Hill & Implications for Metal Music Studies………......61 3.1. Uniessentialism explained……………………………………………..…………………...62 3.2. Rosemary Lucy Hill ………………………………………………………………………74 3.3. Uniessentialism and heavy metal research………………………………………………..80 iv INTRODUCTION I am, to use the term generated by Andy R. Brown, an “egg-head-banger.”1 What Brown meant the term to describe is a “metal-head” or “head-banger” who is also an academic (or, egg- head). I have been a metal-head for a long time, and for most of that time did not realize that there was a way to reconcile my love for metal with my love for philosophy. That was at least the case until I took a class in my undergraduate on the philosophy of rock music. The class covered a variety of topics, mostly concerning aesthetics, but also covered social topics such as race and gender. Those discussions woke me from my dogmatic slumber, as it were, and I began to think about the gender inequality which exists in rock music and, because metal is an exaggerated and extreme form of rock, my own community of head-bangers. While the scholarship itself was useful in leading me to realize all the discrimination and sexism which existed (the sexism and discrimination still exist), I began to notice some other troublesome trends. What I noticed, but have only now materialized into words, is that much of the scholarship described rock music in gendered terms; strong coding of rock music as masculine and all things associated with masculinity then became the reasoning for the sexism which manifested in the scene. The language being used was ultimately gender essentialist, and failed to capture the whole story. If rock or metal are truly arenas for hypermasculinity, then why are there so many women involved? Many of the sources we read in class were influential for other scholars, and now that metal music studies (MMS) has emerged as a field, some of the same pieces have made a comeback and the essentialism and legacy of their work remains in the work of scholars in MMS. 1 A. R. Brown, “Egg-Head-Banger? Critical Reflections on a ‘career’ in Metal Studies” (Modern Heavy Metal Conference: Markets, Practices and Cultures, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, 2016), http://www.modernheavymetal.net/2016/03/mhmc2016-keynote-thursday-june-30th.html. 1 What this experience taught me, though, is the ultimate motivation for my project: to be critical of the media you love. I love metal, even though some bands have lyrics which depict violence against women and other topics which, as a feminist, do not align with my values. Because of my feminist values, it is important for me to remain critical of the music that means a lot to me. However, being critical of the media you love can also extend to metal music studies. MMS is a recent field, and a lot of great interdisciplinary research has been produced (along with some great conferences at which to present that research at) on topics ranging from ethnographies, aesthetics, music production, and social issues such as gender and race. In all of this there is plenty of inward-looking criticism of metal, as it is fair to assert that all the scholars involved are in some ways also fans of metal. However, what is missing is inward-looking criticism of the discipline itself. Like any field, MMS has its founding members, or seminal texts, which everyone relies on at some point. In MMS this is still very much the case, and with the added fun of those people still being very much alive. However, there appears to be very little work done which provides a sort of “self-criticism” of the field. The founding members are still very much revered, and not very often seriously critically evaluated. This is not to say there is no critical evaluation at all, but that there should be more. It is possible to respect these works without reiterating and repeating their mistakes. Self-criticism is important for the field to grow. The primary objective of this project is to provide a framework for better understanding the position of women in metal through the criticism of the gender essentialism at play in the current literature on metal music. Women face sexism and inequality in popular culture, and that is no different in rock music, and by extension metal.

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