A Cornucopia of Bad 90s Style

You know it had to happen: Fuck Yeah Ugly 90s Clothes . (Thanks Autostraddle for the heads-up.)

courtesy of Fuck Yeah Ugly 90s Clothes 

I spent most of the 90s in my early twenties, so I missed a lot of the really bad, teen fashion, but I think I can say with complete confidence that 90s clothes were far uglier than anything we wore in the 80s. And that's saying a lot.

Yes, I know that compared to the tight, high-heeled, super-femme look pushed on women today is far worse than the grunge, combat boot, baby doll dress combo that supposedly defines the 90s, but the truth is few women actually dressed like that. At least in my part of the country.

I did sport several homemade "chokers" that were really remnants of fabric bough on the cheap at a crafts store. That trend was beyond silly.

Ladies of Generations X and Y, You Need to Grow Up

According to this blog post from writer Julie Klausner.

Truthfully, I agree with a lot of what she's saying (although I didn't really know this was a "thing" thanks to being a woefully out-of-the-loop person living in the middle of the country where trends tend to happen five years too late, if at all). Women playing down their accomplishments or intelligence, and adopting a childlike persona to appear non-threatening to men is surely problematic. Unfortunately, so is policing femininity.

While I understand Klausner's post was meant to be humorous, some of the things she listed as proof that we're all turning into little girls -- girl scout cookies, birds, crafting -- aren't necessarily childish, unless, I guess, your entire wardrobe (or more likely, facebook page) is festooned with them. I get the point she was making, I just wish it was made better and without demonizing things that are stereotypically feminine, nay, girlish.  (I say all this with the experience of someone who spent a good chunk of her twenties and early thirties trying her damnedest to be a "bro-dude" with great disdain for anything girly.) But the reactions to the original were, overwhelmingly, of the "Nuh-uh, I'm not!" variety, which invariably shuts down the kinds of discussions we should be having.

Another issue I have with this post is that these tropes aren't available to all women. Tami from What Tami Said wrote a great piece about how the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype (personified by Zoey Deshanel) has no WOC equivalent:

I also find it worth noting that the persona that Klausner writes about is bound by class and race. The cult of domesticity defined idealized womanhood centuries ago--and that definition included both perpetual childhood and whiteness. The wide-eyed, girlish, take-care-of-me characters that Deschanel inhabits on film are not open to many women of color, particularly black women. We can be strong women, aggressive women, promiscuous women...we can do Bonet bohemian and Earth Mother (as Andrea pointed out), but never carefree and childish. Even black girls are too often viewed as worldly women and not innocents.

Of the negative reaction Klausner's post has been getting, she said this later in the comments:

What bugged me most about reaction to the Klausner post was that a whole lot of women seemed to be refusing to even entertain that the trend of the woman-child might mean something for feminism. The reality is that all of our choices—be we men or women—are influenced, in part, by societal values. Though a lot of folks on that thread saw acknowledging that as attacking.

Unfortunately, these points were overlooked by the feminist blogosphere at large in favor of a litany of "I like kitties and cupcakes, and I am a full-fledged grown-up. So there."

Maybe the point was made after all.

My So-Called Nostalgia Trip

The Real 1990s 

I’m not going to deny that My So-Called Life was better than the most of the programming on television in the early-to-mid 90s, nor that it filled a void by giving voice to a number of teenager girls, but to say that the appeal of anything is universal is just really unfair — particularly if the object of that appeal is still thin, white, middle-class, and conventionally attractive (home dye job notwithstanding). Maybe it could have been worded better, because I’m pretty sure that’s not what Donnelly is claiming in this , the most recent post I've read lately, but I brace myself for that little tidbit every time I see another one lauding My So-Called Life. Angela's "every girl" status was pretty much TV-standard, adjusted for a bit of 90s ennui, and with a better-than-average soundtrack.

(Personally, I think a "better" Angela was Roseanne's Darlene Connor. She had a greater sense of agency despite being equally angsty. Plus Roseanne, considering it was a mainstream sitcom in a cushy timeslot, was a pretty realistic portrayal of a working-class family, something not seen all that often in primetime.)

Snarky's Machine said this about the MTV cartoon, Daria, a show with similar appeal, and an overlapping fan base with a predilection for the same heaping praise without considering that maybe its audience was rather limited. It succinctly outlines how problematic "universal"nostalgia is , and I would be remiss not to include it here:

Perhaps the oddest thing about the deification of Daria is this: she whined tremendously without lifting a finger to dismantle the systems she found so distasteful. Again, marginalized folks, devoid of the level of privilege as Daria tend to engage in a lot more direct action, despite not having anything approximating the level of power Daria’s privileges afforded her!

Which brings me to the other thing that always really bothered me about My So-Called Life: while the show did deal with the BIG ISSUES of the day, those things happened only around Angela, leaving her sense of self (relatively) in tact. She never really had to confront those BIG ISSUES except as a supportive friend, and those friends basically existed as plot points (the “gay” friend, the “messed-up” friend, the “cute but troubled” boy). And while just seeing those things on television seemed pretty revolutionary, bit at the same time it still reinforces the stereotype that "bad things happen to other people."

I know this is a point I make over and over again, but as my generation ages into the nostalgia market, it's becoming clear that what constitutes "our culture" is very limiting. Or who the "our" actually is.

What's your damage, Generation-X?

"Generation X is generally defined as those born from 1961 to 1981, which means – I can scarcely bring myself to type these words – that the first Gen-Xers turn 50 this year." -- Darragh McManus from Comment is free

Though I fall squarely in the middle of it, I've always hated the phrase "Generation-X." And up until now I've been avoid the deluge of articles about our entering middle-age and how we're not aging "gracefully."

(Given that the only real option is death, I'll take aging.)

But my contemporaries' unease with "turning into our parents" isn't what's bothering me; it's the entire generation-x zeitgeist and the nostalgia culture that come s with it.

I read a lot of nostalgia blogs, and even write for one in addition to this blog which I hope doesn't smack of too much "back in my day." I don't need to write yet another post about how nostalgia isn't universal, but gen-x nostalgia seems to be particularly limited to white, middle-class culture -- even when it's a sort of dropout culture of indie bands, over-education/underemployment, and a job that pays just enough to allow enough leisure time to read the hippest underground novel or lounge around in pajamas watching a marathon of Saved By the Bell. (Think every character Ethan Hawk has played as channeled by Chuck Klosterman.) It simply wasn't the reality for a lot of people, and its  nostalgia doesn't want to reflect that.

Stealth Feminism*

(An earlier version of this was posted to my Tumblr.)

Riot Girl’s musical mainstays – Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy in the US, and their UK counterparts Huggy Bear – had been broken up for years, but their sound and messages made them iconoclasts. Their mere existence retooled feminism and punk for new generations of music-obsessed girls, showing young women they could start bands and put their lives, frustrations and inspirations into song – and that you didn’t have to be a virtuoso for it to be powerful. (The Guardian)

I write a lot about my apathy towards the riot grrrl movement and the current nostalgia surrounding it. Without taking away from all the good it did, I hate the impression that for women who came of age in the early 90s the only path to feminism was through riot grrrl. Back then I had no idea who those bands were. I had no access to ‘zines or the punk rock underground, and frankly, listening to that music now — the feminist punk rock that I should have drawn strength from when I was 18 or 19 — it just makes me feel more like a victim. I felt a greater sense of agency listening to TLC’s “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg,” which was all over the radio at that time and deemed nothing more than a “silly pop song.”

Whenever I read misty-eyed accounts of riot grrrl's heyday, I feel screaming, "That's not my nostalgia!" Maybe it's because I'm only now old enough to have a nostalgia that isn't borrowed from older siblings that I'm fighting against the narrative that's provided for me: Bikini Kill, Liz Phair, Courtney Love, My So-Called Life, Daria and Clueless. (The last three I know have nothing to do with riot grrrl -- at least not explicitly -- but come included in the 90s nostalgia press packet.) I also think it does a disservice to women making feminist-inspired music today to imply that all that's in the past.



I was introduced to feminism in small doses through mainstream media in varied and sometimes embarrassing ways: Darlene's character on Roseanne, Queen Latifah's "U.N.I.T.Y." and "Ladies First," Jem and the Holograms, Miss Piggy, and a copy of Nancy Friday's Women On Top that I stole from my mom. I was a consumer of the kind of pop culture people my age rally against, and I yet I still managed to have some kind of feminist awaking. I first read about HIV and gay rights in my mom's Redbook and Glamour magazines, of all places. This doesn't take the onus off women's magazines pushing unrealistic body ideals, or television functioning as wallpaper, but it does show that the message is there, albeit hidden, and can lead to better things.

*I credit the term "stealth feminism" to Tiger Beatdown and Yes Means Yes blog)

Scrap: Zines, Blogs and Privilege

"Participating in a girl zine culture requires that one have the leisure to create zines, a life generally uncluttered with the rudiments of survival, access to copy machines and other equipment, money for stamps and supplies, and enough self-esteem and encouragement to believe that one's thoughts are worth putting down for public consumption -- all marks of a certain level of privilege."

"Cut-and-Paste Revolution" by Jennifer Bleyer from The Fire This Time

I was well into my twenties before I knew what a "zine" was, and when I did, zines were the domain of boys who played in bands or worked at the small, community-owed radio station, one of my town's few enclaves of hip. The subculture of women punk rockers and activists had yet to make it to my working-class, Midwestern city. A while ago, I read a comment on another blog that said something like, "Zines were the great equalizer of the 90s." I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think zines and the culture surrounding them caused more of a chasm between the privileged and the less privileged. The last part of that quote says it all: the timesuck of making a homegrown magazine, the expense of copying and mailing them out, the questioning whether you have something worthwhile to say at all... all marks of privilege. A lot of voices got lost in early 90s DIY culture, or weren't heard at all.

Nearly twenty years have passed, and blogs have taken over where zines have left off, but some of the same issues remain. There's no denying it's pretty easy to set up a blog: a number of blog hosts are free, and with prepackaged templates, no HTML is necessary. However, even in 2010, not everyone has internet access, nor the spare time required to maintain a blog. (Libraries have made access easier for those without a computer, but in many cases, those computers have to be booked in advance and depending on your local library, you're chances of getting one when you need it are hit or miss.)

Despite that, if would be naive to suggest that blogging hasn't given voice to a lot of women who've been silenced by traditional (or DIY) media, and for progressive feminists living in conservative parts of the country it's a blessing to find a community of like minded people. But like everything else, invariably some people are left out. Needless to say, I was a little put off by what Manifesta authors, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, said about blogs and other forms of online activism:

"They were not particularly enthusiastic about it, all this Internet and social media stuff. Jennifer said she worried it was a weak substitute for real-life activism. Amy pointed out that it was often yet another form of unpaid work for women, and that many foundations and organizations were launching blogs because they thought they were supposed to, without really knowing what they were for. Debbie didn't really want to talk about her magazine vis a vis the Internet, but she did offer that Facebook was a girly form — "Like passing notes in class," she ad-libbed."

Of course, blogging is a lot of long hours, and mostly unpaid work. A number of women have parleyed their blogs into a source of income, but those are few and far between. As someone who's been blogging in some capacity for about five years, my biggest issue with blogging and its communities is the cliquishness and exclusion. A lot of voices still aren't being heard. Renee from Womanist Musings wrote a great post about the invisibility of women of color in parent blogging. Notably, one of the areas online where women have made significant inroads, and it's still mostly a white, straight, middle-class club. Blogs penned by women who aren't mothers, or blogs that don't fit into a nice, neat, little niche, get lost altogether.

Nostalgia Isn't Universal

(A version of this was originally published at my now-defunct Tumblr.)

There aren't many feminists my age who don't remember musician Kathleen Hanna -- of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre fame -- scrawling SLUT across her stomach as a way to reclaim the word.

Jessica Valenti from Full Frontal Feminism

I'm one of those feminists who doesn't remember Kathleen Hanna scrawling SLUT on her stomach. I know I write a lot about the influx of 90s subculture nostalgia -- probably too much. But I think it's important to note that not everyone's nostalgia is the same, and not every thirty-something woman's version of the 90s is a press pack neatly stuffed with Bikini Kill, Angela Chase, Daria, and Liz Phair. My memories of the 90s are more piecemeal than that. I was still absorbing the brunt of my pop culture through the usual channels: MTV, commercial radio, mainstream magazines, and whatever my friends were into. When I did realize there was something out there beyond my own little world, a lot of times it was through those same channels. The long-gone fashion magazine Mademoiselle, of all things, introduced me to bands like Sonic Youth and, somewhat inexplicably, Redd Kross, leading me to believe they were much more popular than they were. For a few months in 1992, a couple times each day MTV would deviate from their trifecta of Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots and play something like Juliana Hatfield, but my two of my favorite bands were still AC/DC and Metallica, definitely not cool.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm rewriting my own history to fit some prescribed narrative, and I suspect others do to. It wouldn't be honest to pretend my memories of my late teens and early 20s aren't fragmented and odd. What I'd really like to see, though, are a few more voices added to the mix. Every generation gets to write its autobiography, but its contributors need diversity.

The "Not My Nostalgia" Files: Boy Bands

Yesterday I read that The New Kids On The Block and The Backstreet Boys are possibly touring together this coming spring. It was all I could to muster an unenthusiastic "eh."

Not to begrudge anyone her nostalgia, but a lot of 90s culture, especially 90s 'tween culture, had little to do with my life. I was nearing the end of my teens when NKOTB was in their prime, and well into my twenties when The Backstreet Boys were popular. The years I would have been primed and ready for 'tween pop happened during the mid-to-late 80s, arguably a terrible time for pop music. I don't even remember being a 'tween: I was a kid, and then I wasn't. I watched videos on Friday nights, when could persuade my parents to let me stay up late, or more often I watched them on Nick Rocks. The amount of airplay this song got made it my defacto 8th grade anthem:



They played the Monkees a lot, too. It's kind of odd, thinking of a generation of young girls watching the outtakes from a show their mothers' watched twenty years earlier. (Especially during the Monkees later, tripped-out, pseudo-psychedelic years.) The summer I turned twelves, Nickelodeon aired the original show and the "videos" made it to Nick Rocks. (And I know for a fact that I am not the only girl to develop a confusing crush on Peter Tork -- not the 1986 version who was older than my dad, but the young one with the dirty blond, pageboy haircut. And the harp. He had great "harp hands.") So in a way, the Monkees were my "boy band," even if I came to them two decades too late.