From boyfriend huntin' to music lovin'

Upon reading the conclusion for Girls Make Media, I was wishing there was more to the book because I wanted to keep reading, learning and identifying with what was being said. One thing that was talked about in a bit of detail that struck home with me was how girls are socialized to not be interested in instruments that make loud sounds and that through the instruments that are geared towards girls are the instruments that are softer sounding, harder to hear. I had never made the connection before that even through music; women are pointed in the direction of oppression. When Kearney goes on to say that “They are pressurized to get a boyfriend. The search for romance can devour their time, better preparing them for the role of fan than for that of a musician.” It made me think back to when I first got involved in music. The only reason I got into playing music in the first place was because I was looking for a boyfriend and was interested in the drum captain. I thought he was “so cute!” and that if I learned to play drums and got on the drum line that he would notice me. Well, I guess it turned out to be a win-win situation because I ended up dating him for a year and I also really got into music. I became the leader of the bass line, would set up practices, lead songs, etc. It really got me into music and wanting to learn more. My boyfriend was supportive of me wanting to learn more about drums, how to care for them, change drum heads, transport them, the difference between types of sticks and so on and so forth. I learned so much from the guys who were on my drum line and fortunately for me, never experienced any problems. They loved that I was into it, was productive and passionate about what we were doing as a group. They didn’t see me as “one of the guys”, especially because I was dating one of the guys, but I was treated as “just a girl” either. There was respect amongst us and camaraderie, it was fantastic. Luckily I also had an awesome older brother who played the drum set and guitar and got me into learning those things too. He would sit with me and we would practice for hours just messing around, learning new songs and trying to figure music out. I also had a group of guys I hung out with who were in a rock band who loved to teach me things when we hung out. Not because they were trying to impress me, but because they genuinely loved music and wanted to share the knowledge that they had for this thing they were passionate about. Reading this last chapter of Girls Make Media really made me realize that I was so fortunate growing up. I had music that was “masculine” readily available to me, I had my mom’s camcorder that I used on a daily basis for fun to film random things my friends and I did and I even made my own books out of the arts and crafts materials that my mom would buy for me. Reading this chapter made me realize too that I want to work with girls more, to encourage them to do things that seems to be deemed for “the guys” and to give them the opportunities that I had when I was growing up.