I don't play music with my vagina
2018
Few years ago I chose to embrace feminism through music, creating an all female band. This choice has many meanings, but firstly because my feminist ideas come from music, and from the women in music who started to change the idea that music was made only for men. In 70s it was weird to see a woman playing guitar, drums or bass, even "wrong" because it wasn't something included in women's role, but still today it is perceived strange to see women playing music as men.
We are often surprised if we see women playing an "aggressive" genre (like rock music). not to mention that the musical world is mainly in the hands of men: according to a statistic conducted by Forbes, 21% of artists are women, 12% are authors and only 2.1% are producers.
The musical environment has prejudices against the genre that are impossible to ignore (let's just think. how many women musicians have to sexualize their body to get a level of visibility on a par with men), and even in my small way (I had a decidedly provincial band) I could recognize this prejudice.
"I don't play music with my vagina" was created to undermine these prejudices. I recorded 4 female musicians and 4 male musicians playing a solo with their instrument (drum, guitar, bass guitar) , and then I created an audio sequence with all these recordings that follow each other in a loop.
The video then asks us to recognize if whoever is playing is a man or a woman; it is obviously impossible to understand who is playing without visual coordinates, and whoever gives an answer will respond only according to his prejudice.
Of course it is not about to show if women are better than men in playing, this just doesn't depend by the sex of the musician, and I believe this work can make you think about the prejudices there are towards women in music.
The title is inspired by a quote of the leader of the 90s band The Distillers, Brody Dalle, who answered so when an interviewer asked her how does it feel to be the "girl in a band".