New project for ex-Le Tigrites, feminism on back burner?
By Jess McCabe | 27 March 2008, 18:12
JD and Johanna from Le Tigre have formed a new group, called MEN.
Lesbilicious points out that they gave an unfortunate interview to Bust magazine, in which they said things like:
I mean, the reason we came up with the name in the first place was, we were in an airport and we were talking about Jo’s new philosophy of living, which was called “what would a man do?” Which is like, when someone cuts in front of you in line, [as a woman] you’re just like, “Oh, it’s OK.” But what would a man do? A man would be like, “”Excuse me, why did you just cut me in line?” I mean, not any man, a certain kind of man. Then we decided we wanted to live by that philosophy and we were like, “What should we call ourselves?” And we were like, “MEN. We’re going to be like men.” We think about it all the time. We don’t want to be the nice people anymore - we want to be like men.”
And:
But what does it mean to be a “man” anyway?
JD: “Well, for us, it means we wear purple and yellow.”
As Lesbilicious puts it:
MEN are appallingly sexist, both to women and men. Women might be passive and pathetic, but men, according to JD, are just “not nice people.” Is this really as far as MEN’s thinking on gender go? Apparently so, as every opportunity to claw back some dignity given to them by the very generous interviewer Alison Feldmann is squandered with jokes.
I somehow doubt that’s really it as far as the gender analysis goes (maybe they were drunk?!) You can listen to some tracks on MySpace.
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Mike said:
If it frees up Kathleen Hanna to do something cool on her own (preferably with more crunchy guitars and less beeping) - awesome.
As a man I can honestly say I've never worn purple and yellow. But maybe that's an American thing.
Posted on 28 March 2008 at 11:52 PM
Laura Woodhouse said:
Gah, this doesn't bode well.. And I like the beeping!
Posted on March 29, 2008 4:37 PM
Laura Woodhouse said:
Oo, just checked out the myspace - it's a veritable beepfest :-D I imagine they don't really mean a word they're saying about men, but I'm not getting the funny. The purple and yellow, though, yes please.
Posted on March 29, 2008 4:52 PM
Chloe said:
It's really sad that they feel that way about the gender roles of men and women. They're right that the music industry is still very much a boys' club, but is thinking about what men would do in any given situation really going to help? It seems like they've just taken a huge step backwards. What happened to "feminist fury"?!
Posted on 30 March 2008 at 2:35 AM
to the east said:
Looks like Kathleen Hanna was the brains behind the Le Tigre operation.
Posted on 30 March 2008 at 2:17 PM