Women, Fire and Dangerous Things in Exklusiv #88 (05.2010)

The wonderful woman Karolina Sulej, music and fashion journalist, scholar, dj, co-organiser of such awesome events as Photomonth Krakow, contributor to Wysokie Obcasy, music editor and vice-editor of Exklusiv Magazine, is inspired by Women, Fire and Dangerous Things in her May music editorial. I could not be more honoured!

"Your Kid Sister


I recently found some tapes from my childhood years. Apart from 2Unlimited and Guns'n'Roses, there were tapes with my own songs. I was ashamed to find out I have over 5 hours of my lyrical and vocal performances of dubious quality on tape.


Karolina Sulej - vice-editor, music editor
illustration: Magdalena Łapińska

The American documentary Girls Rock is a story about how important it is for girls to "sing to the tape recorder". That is, about how they shouldn't be afraid to express their feelings and be who they are. Specifically, about a summer camp. A rock camp. Young girls, from the age of five or six to teenagers, learn to play, compose, write lyrics, form bands, and at the end, give a concert together. The camp is visited by female rock stars. When Beth Ditto came over, even the tiniest babies pogoed to Standing in the Way of Control. Rock and roll is supposed to work as a way of releasing anger, fear and frustration, as well as of learning to communicate with others, making friends with those similar to you. The girls who came to the camp include: a daughter of drug addicts, sent from one orphanage to another, a chubby Asian girl bullied at school for being a "freak", a girl with ADHD, another with anxiety neurosis. The campsite, in the middle of a forest, was a meeting ground for young girls of all races and classes - a real ersatz America. They say they're afraid of school. That nobody likes them. That they're fat. That they're ugly. That they don't fit in. That they can't believe they can succeed in anything. The teachers want to explain to them that MTV and a few popular girls at school can't dictate their self-worth. And music, again, becomes a mainspring of evolution - in this case a small one, restricted to a few people, but big enough to heal some traumatic experiences of growing up. The little Palace, who at first couldn't cope with other girls, bit, hit, and argued about everything, is smiling widely at the closing concert, fondly looking at her equally little guitarist and singing lyrics she wrote herself: "San Francisco can be so boring, I don't want to go on this trip with mum, because she only thinks of herself, I'm gonna watch this city burn, burn, burn". She drops the piece of paper with song lyrics. We get a close-up: "I wanna be a SOUPer star". I'd like to be a star like that too.

Or one like Your Kid Sister, or Maia Vidal. The frisky Spaniard pulled a right stunt at old hardcore punks. She recorded the hit Poison in a version which easily floors the old hands. Time out, boys. From Maia's MySpace: "The character that was created is a (duh) younger sister who, having found your Rancid records, dragged them into her room and learned to sing along. As you can tell, she never understood that Punk was a movement, a state of mind, or that she was doing it all wrong". You can listen to her "singing along" record on the internet, and also see the video to Poison - a little masterpiece comparable to Bat For Lashes' What's a Girl to Do. Unfortunately, from my childhood adventure with the tape recorder and playing "the keys" I'm only left with the ability to play Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya and singing Whitney Houston songs correctly on karaoke. And of course, because I couldn't become a musician, I became a music journalist. A female music journalist, actually. Oops.

I recently found an interesting zine online. It's called "Veto" and is about the situation of women in the media. "In 2007 the Fawcett Society collated data from nine leading daily British newspapers: they document two female to seventeen male editors, one female to seventeen male deputy editors and one female to seventeen male comment and review editors. The International Federation of Journalists notes that in 2001 in Canada and North America only 28% of all newspaper journalists and 37% of television journalists were female. The Canadian Newspaper Association records that in 2002 women represented only 8% of all editors-in-chief and publishers for nationally recognised broadsheets." That's a part of the opening manifesto. Are female journalists really still at a risk of bumping their heads against the glass ceiling? I don't think so - the glass ceilings are breaking one after another, even if we get our pretty faces scarred in the process. And for those who wish us hell, we can only sing: Some people are poison, Under my skin like opium, And I'll stare in their eye to annoy them, Yeah they're poison.

I found out about Your Kid Sister and the "Veto" zine from Women, Fire and Dangerous Things - www.womenfiredangerousthings.blogspot.com - a blog ran by female journalist Marta Owczarek. We're publishing her interview with the Spanish band Tu Madre next month."



Nothing makes me happier than to think that this blog actually inspired someone and spread the word about women and their various activities. The blog gets a mention, but the editorial really is about Your Kid Sister and "Veto", and I'm infinitely glad I could support both like this. Maïa Vidal is really French-American and not Spanish, and the blog address is www.womenfiredangerousthings.blogspot.com, but those are minor details that I hope don't spoil the sheer pleasure of seeing this editorial in print for anyone. They certainly don't spoil it for me, I'm giddy like a five year old on stage, Girls Rock-like. Thank you so much, Karolina!