It's really hard to get this thought out without sounding cloying or smugly chauvinistic, but here goes.
I listen to a lot more women than I used to, musically speaking. Whilst I never avoided them, my listening habits were always heavily skewed towards male 'voices' and recently (read: maybe the past 2 years) I've gone significantly in the other direction. I don't even just perk my ears up when I hear a female voice drifting over some needling electronica; I actively seek them out. I'm now way more likely to listen to a song on the Internet if it's by or featuring a woman. I'm more floored by female rappers like Angel Haze or Azealia Banks than I am by Kendrick Lamar or Meek Mill. I respond more powerfully, and more quickly, to stories being told by women. Cat Power and Anais Mitchell make me shiver in ways that even Dylan hasn't been able to. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I have a hunch. Well, two hunches.
A year and a half ago I met Lauren, who completely reframed the way I saw the world and the people in it. She showed up and was the most dynamic, alive and intensely capable person I'd ever met. In her I saw all the possibilities of humanity. I still do. Some people are born to be the masters of the universe, and she's one of them. As someone who is smarter, stronger and more charming than I am, she sees and handles the obstacles in her way better than I could imagine myself doing, and she does it with a singular, unmatched grace and loveliness.
Not long after that I became friends with 3 strident, eloquent and ferocious feminists named Erin, Bec and Joel. I need to include all three of them because while Erin and Bec are the women that this world desperately needs, Joel is without question the man that I hope all men can be to stand and fight with them. The ease and confidence with which these three dissect and rebuild the world around them, bending it to their will and for the betterment of everyone, makes me want to do that too.
It is completely a failure of my own that it took me 24 or so years to learn that adoring and chasing women wasn't being a feminist. It's testament to my ongoing education that I still can't quite express what I'm trying to. Forgive what is probably a maddening bunch of words to wade through, but I listen to so much of what women have to say because I want to hear it. I've spent most of my life talking to women, but not nearly enough of it listening to them. I don't need to try to correct this error. My brain and heart crave it.
Fiona Apple was this year unmatched in expression and audacity. Werewolf stakes its claim to a spot on my list.
But we could still support each other, all we gotta do is avoid each other
Nothing wrong when a song ends in the minor key
