BROCK UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9157 00906436 4 Righteous Sounds and Reproductive Justice: The Influence of Ani DiFranco's Music for Reproductive Rights Activists By Anna Lise Domanski A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts MA Program in Social Justice and Equity Studies BROCK UNIVERSITY St. Catharines, Ontario t **,».« . ^,^«^ JAMES A GIBS(»^ UBRAEY FebruarvFebruary 2008 ^^^^^ UNIVERSITY ST. CATHARINES ON © Anna Lise Domanski, 2008 Abstract (Anticipate) In this thesis, I explore how the folk-rock music of Ani DiFranco has influenced the activist commitments, sensibilities, and activities of reproductive rights activists. My interest in the relation of popular music to social movements is informed by the work of Simon Frith (1987, 1996a, 1996b), Rob Rosenthal (2001), and Ann Savage (2003). Frith argues that popular music is an important contributor to personal identity and the ways that listeners see the world. Savage (2003) writes that fans develop a unique relationship with feminist/political music, and Rosenthal (2001) argues that popular music can be an important factor in building social movements. I use these arguments to ask what the influence of Ani DiFranco's music has been for reproductive rights activists who are her fans. I conducted in-depth interviews with ten reproductive rights activists who are fans of Ani DiFranco's music. All ten are women in their twenties and thirties living in Ontario or New York. Each has been listening to DiFranco's music for between two and fifteen years, and has considered herself a reproductive rights activist for between eighteen months and twenty years. I examine these women's narratives of their relationships with Ani DiFranco's music and their activist experience through the interconnected lenses of identity, consciousness, and practice. Listening to Ani DiFranco's music affects the fluid ways these women understand their identities as women, as feminists, and in solidarity with others. I draw on Freire's (1970) understanding of conscientization to consider the role that Ani's music has played in heightening women's awareness about reproductive rights issues. The feeling of solidarity with other (both real and perceived) activist fans gives them more confidence that they can make a difference in overcoming social injustice. They believe that Ani's music encourages productive anger, which in turn fuels their passion to take action to make change. Women use Ani's music deliberately for energy and encouragement in their continued activism, and find that it continues to resonate with their evolving identities as women, feminists, and activists. My study builds on those of Rosenthal (2001) and Savage (2003) by focusing on one artist and activists in one social movement. The characteristics of Ani DiFranco, her fan base, and the reproductive rights movement allow new understanding of the ways that female fans who are members of a female-dominated feminist movement interact with the music of a popular independent female artist. Acknowledgements (Gratitude) Thank you first to the ten women who participated in this project. I loved hearing about your experiences, your appreciation of Ani's music, and your passion for reproductive rights. I hope I have represented your stories well here. I cannot thank David Butz enough, for his unwavering support, patience, advice, and for sharing music. I will always be especially grateful for his encouragement to pursue my interest in protest music as an MA thesis, and his willingness to supervise my work. Thank you to David Fancy for sharing interesting theoretical discussions, his patience, and taking time to read drafts while on sabbatical. Thank you to my father. Bob Domanski, for his support, for reading chapters and drafts, for making continued inquiries, and for giving me the seed of an idea a long time ago. Thank you to my mother. Eve Bums, for being my first feminist role model and for always believing in me. Thanks also to Don Dine, especially for his constant efforts to convince me that the next stage of this research project would be easier. Thank you so much to Stacey Byrne and Mary Fogarty, who have been fantastic friends and gave me lots of advice on research, writing, revising, and defending, and who were always happy to talk about Ani fandom. I would like to thank Dr. Norma Coates for serving as the External Examiner for my defence, as well as Dr. Rebecca Raby and Dr. Cathy Mondloch for their contributions at my defence. I could not have completed this project without support from a Brock Graduate Fellowship and a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship (award #766-2006- 0156). I have also been assisted in numerous ways by Virginia Wagg, Linda Landry, Dr. Jane Helleiner, Jill DeBon, Dr. Nancy Cook, Ethna Bemat, and Viola Bartel. I owe many thanks to my wonderful colleagues Lorraine Paimett and Allison Jensen who each took me in at times when I needed a place to stay, and to Leia Fougere, who was always a willing proof-reader, and made sure I kept in touch with the real world. Thank you also to Miranda Elliott and Leigh Power Sherry, who let me invite myself for a visit whenever I was looking for a new place to work or a break, and who each cooked me wonderful gluten- free vegetarian food. Thanks as well to friends and colleagues Zorianna Zurba, Kate Williams, Sandra Starmans, Arusa Shafi, Samah Sabra, Heather Maguire, Athena Madan, Emily Johnson, Jilhan DiTillio, Sylvia Bawa, and Cheryl Athersych. Thanks also to the many cooks with Food Not Bombs Niagara over the past year. I always looked forward to our sessions in kitchens and parks, cooking good food and brainstorming ways that we could help make the world a better place. Your commitment to peace, justice, and the community is inspiring. Finally, thank you to Paul and Dave, who introduced me to Ani DiFranco's music and entertained my adolescent dreams of making a better world. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction (Welcome To) 5 Chapter 2: Literature Review (School Night) 15 Chapter 3: Background (The Story) 41 Women in Music (Jukebox) 42 Reproductive Rights Activism (Willing to Fight) 49 Ani DiFranco ("I'm No Heroine") 53 Conclusion (Back Around) 59 Chapter 4: Methodology (What How When Where Why Who) 61 Participants and Sampling Procedure (Decree) 63 Table 1 . Participants' Personal Characteristics (Names and Dates and Times) 66 The Interview Process (The Interview) 67 Coding and Analysis (Self Evident) 68 Chapter 5: Identity (32 Flavors) 71 A Theory of Music and Identity (Handsome Musician) 73 Music and Self (As Is) 75 Personal Identity as Women (Hide and Seek) 77 Group Identity (Small World) 80 Feminist Identity (Coming Up) 83 Shifting Identity (Modulation) 86 Conclusion (Back Around) 89 Chapter 6: Consciousness (Reckoning) 91 Conscientization (Light of Some Kind) 93 The Role of Authenticity (Superhero?) 100 Reinforcing the Importance of Familiar Issues (Ain*t That the Way) 103 Community's Role in Conscientization (Company) 105 Conclusion (Back Around) 113 Chapter 7: Practice (Hell Yeah) 115 The Role ofEmotionand Anger (Fuel) 118 Encouraging Activism (Face Up and Sing) 121 The Relation of Music and Activist Practice (Served Faithfully) 124 Activism as a Lifestyle (Revelling) 127 Conclusion (Back Around) 132 Chapter 8: Conclusions (So What) 135 Music, Affect, and Social Activism (Pulse) 135 The Influence of Ani DiFranco's Music for Reproductive Rights Activists (Marrow) ... 138 Intersections in Analysis (Overlap) 140 Positioning Findings within Existing Literature (Harvest) 142 Bibliography 148 Appendices 158 Chapter 1 : Introduction (Welcome To)^ it's nice that you listen; it'd be nicer if you joined in -Ani DiFranco, "Face Up and Sing," Out ofRange (1994) Music has been a feature of social and political movements in North America, dating back to slave worksongs, emancipation, and information songs in the eighteenth century (Eyerman and Jamison 1998: 45). Early 1900s union champion Joe Hill is said to have commented that he used music to promote his cause because people resonate with and remember the words of a song better than the text of a leaflet (Eyerman and Jamison 1998: 59). My objective in this thesis is to better understand how so-called 'protest music' has influenced social movements and the individual actors within them. My specific contribution is to focus on one social movement (the reproductive rights movement), and one artist (Ani DiFranco) whose fans seem to be particularly well represented among core groups of activists in that movement. The focus on Ani DiFranco's music allows me to explore the influences that a female artist's work has on a female-dominated social movement. My research question is, in what ways do reproductive rights activists feel that their activist commitments, activities, and sensibilities have been influenced by their relationship with Ani DiFranco's music? In order to begin to provide an answer to this question, I interviewed ten women who feel they have been influenced by listening to DiFranco's music and who also consider themselves to be activists in the area of reproductive rights. I demonstrate in this thesis that the influences of DiFranco's music on their activist sensibilities fall into the three interrelated areas of identity, consciousness, and practice, and show that most of my participants were influenced by DiFranco's music in all three areas. Participants said that ^ Bracketed parts of chapter titles and section subtitles in this thesis have come from song titles in Ani DiFranco's recording career. Ani's music has helped them to shape their identities, and has led them to be able to articulate their identities more effectively to others. For many, Ani's lyrics brought about a heightened awareness of their roles in creating positive change in the world, and influenced the different activist activities and practices they take up.