GATHER: Gather & Seven Generations Split

Pressing Info:

Production:

As the recordings were not made together I will split the information for a better understanding.

Seven Generations:

Both songs were recorded in August 2005 at Shiva Studios by John Haddad. On both songs are guest vocals. A friend of the band, Ashley Rose, made on „Atonement“ some guest vocals and Sarah Russert of This Time Tomorrow on „The Rising of the Sun“.

Gather:

This record was recorded spring 2005 by Scott Crouse and Thor Andersen. Engineered also from Scott Crouse at the Sweat Shop in Fresno, CA. By the way Scott Crouse plays guitar in the band Earth Crisis, which I hope you know.

Cover:

The full artwork was designed by www.emptydesign.net Unfortunately you can no longer find this work online over their portfolio. They designed also artworks for bands like Graf Orlock and Zann. And who knows why they also designed artworks for Graf Orlock for example? Yes correct, Adam, drummer of Graf Orlock designed the full artwork of the first press of the split. And in addition also the Total Liberation 7“ of Gather for example.

If you are interested in his actual artwork of Adam, please check out his personal website

As you might know, there are two different covers for the split. One with a guy on the front cover and a beautiful lyric booklet inserted and then the second press with a black and white cover artwork with two live pictures of Gather and Seven Generations.

Unfortunately I was not able to figure out, if the first press cover had a story behind this guy on the front side or not. I guess it is only a standard stock photo. You will see, the photo is also on SIDE B of the vinyl on black and white.

Testpress:

To understand the importance of this test press, I have to talk about a little bit.

I spoke with guys from around the world about this holy test press. Everyone said to me, outside the band no one has it and probably will never receive one. After a little conversation with Marco, received from him some records of Gather and he knows also the band members, also he said to me, all what he knows is, that Dustin has one, but will hold for it and is not willing to get apart of it. This was the first time I was able to confirm the information, there exists this test press. A little bit later, I found Erik from New Eden Records over facebook and started to write with him about the records. He confirmed me, that he has one and we could arrange something. At the same time I received a message from Dustin (drummer) and he requested my mailing adress. He did not said any single word about what he will send to me. First I thought about a shirt design or something similar do that. Maybe also "only" a little present back of the gather era, but I did not expected this BIG gift. I tried also to figure it out by asking Eva a few times, but nothing. Both of them kept silent. All what Eva said was: It is not THAT special, but hopefully I will be glad with it. Funnily enough after getting the present, I have to say it was better not to say anything about, because otherwise I guess I'd be so excited every day until it arrived. I can't understand what I have done or wrote to deserve that present, but I feel honored to get it.

It was kinda funny, because days before Dustin wrote me, Eva showed me a picture of all the 7“ test presses she owns without even expecting how fast my heart was beating in that one single second I opened the picture to see what she sent to me. Immediately I offered here an immoral amount, which she denied. At least she has a merciful brother who come to the aid of me, haha.

Regular Presses:

Three different colors with three different amount of copies of the first press. I think I will start with the most rare edition and end with the most distributed one.

I really like the clear edition of the split. I know it is an usual type of color for vinyl, but together with the bright cover artwork it harmonizes in a good way. Again after for the Beyond the Ruins 12“ they used clear vinyl for a release. So a conspiratorial connection between both records is: the 7“ is one of the first and the 12“ the latest.

Someone mentions on his howsyouredge - trading list this one is the pre-order edition. That sounds curious to me, because if this one is the pre-order with a higher amount of copies as the clear edition, what is going on with that? Another hint what would confirm that information, no matter which color is, this post and the answer of a guy on the xcatalystx board. Anyway, let’s go ahead. The peach swirl is not a standard color of Gather releases. Standard colors are clear and green and maybe black if you put the test presses together with the rest of this release. Exact this circumstance made the peach swirl a more unique release than any other one.

I guess there is nothing special with this one. I already owned that several times and traded/sold it for other stuff. A regular black record. At a certain time, a black record is no longer a record you really need because it looks so good, rather it is a record which you want to own, to complete a collection. But then on the other side, today so many records came with different types of colors, shades, with hazes, marbled, splatter, etc. then a usual black record returns to something special.

This one was also exclusively distributed by Revelation Records.

Additionally it was pressed/sold after the band broke up.

As there were no exact pressing info about the amount of the copies I tried my luck by mailing Revelation Records and waiting for an answer. A couple of weeks later I received a short response. They explained me they do not have any specific information about this record and so on can not help me out. Thats strange, because days before the split was still for sale online. But as I received later the information in total 1000 copies were made it was a simple calculation. I am not 100% sure because I can not promise the rest of the editions are filled in correctly with the amount, there should be round about 350 copies I guess.

This one also arrives with a lyric sheet on a normal paper with the backside printed of new releases, back in the days, of New Eden Records. Not as the first edition, with a booklet of the lyrics and explanations together.

I don’t know why, but I have the feeling the label didn’t took care of the second press. Not even a full cover/sleeve was made. The different cover design, live-picture of both bands separated with a line in black and white, was also only printed on a paper and does not even have a full backside.

Lyrics & Explanations:

1. Seven Generations - Atonement

If this is light leave me in the dark / If this is salvation cast me into the flames / And watch me smile / With a smile stretched across my heathen face / So there is not one ounce of doubt / Which side of your gates I proudly stand on / Your tides of genocide and cultural assimilation / Have crashed upon this earth for far too long / And There's not one holy word or tearful prayer / To wipe clean the lineage of this empire / And if there is one thing that your church has earned / Is that you all deserve to fucking burn / Burn in the hell that you made / Burn in the hell you created / Burn in hell

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The Catholic Church has plagued this Earth for just shy of 2000 years. In the duration of its existence Catholicism has demanded obedience to a fictitious white male god and threatened that the consequence for disbelief or lack of obedience to this intangible figure is to suffer for all of eternity in the inferno of Hell. While the hell that Catholicism threatens us with may be make believe the hell that is has created on earth is very real and has brought to a bloody and countless cultures of indigenous people. The patriarchy and bigotry that fills the Catholic "holy text"? has been used as justification by the Vatican and other genocidal Catholic groups which received the church's support to imprison, abuse, torture, and murder those who did not fall under Catholicism narrow religious view of the world. This is a text that paints womyn as lesser humyns and states that a womyn's place is serving man and man's place is serving God. This is a text that paints humyn affection as dirty and sinful when expressed outside of the confines of heterosexual, Catholic marriage. This is a text that slanders humyn diversity with its claim of one "chosen" people and "one true god". This is a text which has shape the oppressive view which has a strangle hold on the modern world. This text, this church, this religious, has been the merciless hand of corrupt power, the haunting drums of war, the horrifying face of bloody death that brought to an end the way of life and the lives of my ancestors and the ancestors' people from every corner if this earth. Catholicism brought to an end the culture of the druids who were buried alive in the name of an invading cultures god. Catholicism brought to an end the cultures of the pagans of Europe who were burned at the stake as "sinners"? and "heretics". Once Europe was conquered, Catholicism brought its tides of genocide to the shores of what is now known as the Americas and it decimated the Shoshone, the Blackfoot, the Maroones, the Incas, the Aztecs and the peoples of Hawaii. These proud tribes and many, many others were murdered in battle or forced into slavery to build missions to honor the god of the army of that stole their land and butchered their kin. This assimilation of the non-Catholic world continues to this very day as Catholic missionaries storm their way into south pacific. Asia and parts of Africa, exploiting the impoverish condition of villages in that region by demanding prayer and servitude in return for food and so called "humanitarian aid". Catholicism is not the culture of Britain, northern or western Europe, North America, Central America, South America, Asia or Africa. The reason Catholicism exists in these lands is because Catholic forces invaded and destroyed the homes and cultures of the indigenous people. The hatred that burns within my very being for this religion and for this hierarchical order is the birthright of my people and the aforementioned peoples. This hatred is the right of all womyn and homosexuals who have been devalued and dehumynized by the Vatican and the text within Catholic scripture. This hatred is what must be used as a tool to remove oppressive Catholic shackles from around our limbs and claim our lives and our spirits for ourselves again. This hatred is what must spark the coverage within all of us to rid over world of this theism that has proved that it will time and time again destroy any and all cultures other than its own. Because in their 2000 years, if is one thing the priests, the missionaries, the pope, the Vatican and the catholic Church itself has earned, it's that they all deserve to FUCKING BURN IN THE HELL THAT THEY HAVE MADE ON THIS EARTH!

2. Seven Generations - Rising of The Sun

Another culture is crushed by our uncaring hands / Another acre falls beneath the treads of this / Burial, heartless empire as we pillage the world / Searching for a dream within the nightmare we made / But I dream of standing on top of / The wreckage of these dividing walls / And I dream of the day these chains break / From around our bloody mangled wrists / As our arrogant pride blinds our foolish eyes / And as our luxury corrupts our selfish souls / Another's life is stolen by the horrific plague / Our mislead longings have fed over all the years / But I long to see the end of this / Oppressive, cut-throat hegemony / And I long for the day when all eyes / Can finally open to see the sun of freedom rise / To cast out this darkness that stretches without end and with the veil of night lifted at last from our eyes the truth will shine as bright as day / We are slaves bound to the oars that row us into damnation / Lamenting our lives of bondage while holding / The key of freedom in our hands / We are the tortured servants of a murderous master / Starving as we steal to feel the belly of the beast / So here I'm standing on the outskirts of the sanity frantically screaming for the rising sun

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The suffering toe American government and way of life creates is widespread and all encompassing. From Los Angeles, California to Sao Paolo, Brazil to Seoul, South Korea, it is near impossible if not entirely impossible to find an acre of land on this earth left unaffected by the the industrial firestorm of America and its multinational corporations. Through globalization, through imperialistic militarism, through unrelenting hegemony America has, with increasing vigor, bent this world to its will. Across the seas and continents within the lands that we dominate the suffering is felt by the independent farmers whose land is stolen and homes destroyed by greedy corporations left to pillage the worlds resources and economies with the protective aid of the FTAA ( Free Trade Area of the Americas). The suffering is felt by womyn and children of the third world who are forced into sweatshops to sew together shoes for Nike, jeans for The Gap and t-shirts for Wal-Mart or driven by whip or gun into fields to pick coffee beans for Starbucks or tomatoes for Taco Bell all because of WTO (World Trade Organization) destroyed any sovereign law protecting humyn rights and because Americans just could not live without their four dollar coffee or "low, low prices"? and clothing. The suffering is felt in central and south America as the rain forests and wild lands are clear cut, slashed and burned so that cattle farmers could have gazing land that would allow McDonalds to sell cheap hamburgers (pumped full of poisonous hormones and filled with deforestation crop filler products). The suffering is felt by Palestinians who are murdered 5000 a month by the nation of Israel and its endless military and financial aid courtesy of the good ole U.S. of A. The aforementioned people and countless more live in the wake of our nation gone mad with power and riches. To them the sight of the stars and stripes is a painful and ever-present reminder of the privilege and arrogance of a country run by heartless wealth addicts. Within the walls of this modern day Babylon the suffering is felt by the poor who are given no hope and no mercy because if they cannot pump money into our economy they are viewed as worthless. the suffering is felt by womyn who are regarded in every aspect of the state, from the school yard to the workplace to the very laws themselves, to be second class citizens (that is of course if they are even granted the fundamental respect of being recognized as anything more than objects in the first place). The suffering is felt by the non-white races as they are reminded time and time again by the law enforcement and by the media that they are perceived as inferior and untrustworthy. The suffering is felt by the working class who are allowed no dreams within reach, no rest lasting enough and no life outside of their ball-and-chain 9 to 5 jobs which they are told to be grateful to have because "the bills gotta get paid somehow"? (all tough anyone to have displeasure of being employed in a passionless job knows that somehow the bills are always larger than the paychecks). The suffering is soul-crippling felt by the few remaining Native Americans who after suffering 500 years of genocide are now being forced to endure what very minuscule land they have left being intruded upon and stolen by gold mining corporations. All this within the supposed "greatest country on earth"? The question that we are left with is "how will this ever change"? I do not have all the answers but what is apparent to me is the simple fact that those in control will never forfeit their power, thusly it must be taken from them. To do this we must first realize the simple fact that it is our tears that grease their gears, our blood that that fuels their machines and our sweat that keeps their lumbering industry pushing ever forward. Somewhere along the line they managed to convince us that it is we who need then when the truth of the matter is contrary. It is the system that perishes without the people not the people who perish without the system. The powers that be are fully aware of the fact that if an oppressed people realize that they are mighty a revolution will undoubtedly occur. To accomplish this we must strike where it will be felt hardest, their bank account. We can and must do this by educating ourselves on what we consume and taking the stand that if a product is created by a corporations that thrives off of humyn suffering if a product is the end result of slavery and coercion, that we will not consume it. We will instead support companies and corporations that practice fair labor, that practice organic farming that practice sustainable harvesting realizing that while it is not perfect or ideal it is at least a very real step in the right direction. We can and must do this by altering our diets and becoming vegan, realizing that meat and diary industries are not only responsible for the murder of an inconceivable amount of animal beings but also the destruction of the feral environment and the imbalance of food distribution throughout the world. We can and must do this by organizing, creating communities again so that we no longer are isolated from each other, so that we no longer are apathetic or callous towards individuals other than ourselves and also so stat we no longer turn to the police state that does not care for us for a single second of protection. We can and must do this by taking part in protest so that our voices are heard in the streets and community centers where they are represented fairly, not by the corporate media who seek to portray positive revolutionaries as terrorists. We can and must to this by taking part in direct action, shrouding ourselves in the shadows of the night ad bringing the retribution of economic sabotage to the companies that oppress and exploit. The seeds of a new world are in our hands and the vision of a new life where our spirits are satisfied is over right. We can change the world and we must change the world. To do this we must sacrifice the comfort that has kept us in our places for so long. To do this we must take it upon ourselves to act and no longer wait for someone else to be our salvation. it may be called naive, it may be called self righteous, it may be called unrealistic or even insane but what I call it is absolutely necessary and until the sunlight of a new world shines upon my face I will standing here on the outskirts of "sanity"? screaming with all that i can I am for the rising sun.

3. Gather - New Forms

No choices or our own, we've been assigned our roles from day one / Don't even know our own interests, never had the chance to discover that inspires us / Told that what we're taught in school is all that's worthy to pursue / Interests outside of it have no value, if it doesn't motivate you, "there must be something wrong with you" / Spend all our time dedicated to the very few options given, outside of those narrow guidelines, we can hardly imagine there's anything more! / No Work today and it's bright outside but you don't know what to do now that you have your own free time / The TV has always been there to pacify and keep you from asking "what do I really like?" / So many years of buying the lies that through "production" is the only way we can feel satisfied / "If you're not earning money for the system you're wasting your time" but what answer will we find if we ask why? Aren't we just wasting our time for someone else just like slaves? / Fooling ourselves that we need it, that we should enjoy it, or at least accept it/ Each day on the job we're being robbed! / they keep our food under lock and key to force us to operate this machine / Slaves were used to build this civilization surely our rules didn't want to end this tradition / It is just changed forms, but we're still under their control! / Chattel slavery got too costly to provide food and shelter for their property / [Now they] leave that up to us and make us dependent they don't worry about us running away because we go to them / Is this all there is to life? Is this supposed to give me a purpose? / I would rather die than submit to that lie!

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All through high school, I felt like something was really be wrong with me. I didn't feel like I was crazy, but everyone around me make me wonder why I couldn't just fucking suck it up and get a job, and maybe even feel a little excited or proud of it. There was something in me that dreaded the idea of spending my days at work saving away for a future vacation instead of using that very time to make my own fun. I didn't really believe that I needed to go somewhere far, or save up a lot of money to enjoy my life. I didn't want to live for the weekends like I had all through my life in school, and I didn't want to spend one minute hating my life because it was so accepted to believe that one day in the future, it would be worth all that suffering.

The only reason we think we have to work or go to school in order to have a life of meaning is because no one ever tells us there is any other options. Our purpose for living in this world is to eventually get a career, only then will we be able to enjoy life (through vacations one day, that probably will rarely even happens.)

In school, there is just a handful of subjects, these are what we're told are the important things to know in life. We have to go to school 5 out 7 days of the week for 9 out of 12 months of the year. Even on those dew days off, we are supposed to spend them doing homework, reading things that our teachers tell us we need to read, writing essays about issues that we're told are interesting. All this is doing is preparing us for our fate: being wage slaves for the rest of our lives. There is pretty much no time to ourselves to explore our own desires, to know what our own interests really are. We simply don't have the time for hat kind of personal reflection and we're so sheltered from any other ways of living. Sure you can drop out of high school, but most likely you end up working. Then if you want to graduate, you might work a slightly better job. And if you decided to go to the college for a little longer, sou end up working eventually anyway. After all, what else is there to do?

Our imaginations have killed, so we look for things to do that have been predetermined by the very system that tells us to go to school/work in the first place. We end up depending on escapism (be it TV, internet, drinking) to get over the hell of work or school and to recuperate before tomorrow. We should not accept these as our only options, yet we don't know any different because our whole lives we've only been exposed to what they've wanted us to be exposed to, and therefore have passed up a lifetime of discovering things that give us personal fulfillment.

We're made to believe that our interests aren't valid unless they are "producing" something Bullshit. The only reason production is valued is because of the capitalist culture that we live in, and if you don't like the culture we live in, then don't uphold the same values it forces on us! I can#t even keep track of how many times I've heard people say "Nothing" when I ask them what they did this Summer... Turns out, they did plenty of things, but they just weren't making money of taking classes or something and therefore, what they did hat no "value". Their parents probably told them (as mine told me) that I need to "do something" when in reality, everyday I was doing things I loved, like drawing, or reading, or riding my bike, having great times with friends, traveling, going to shows, playing in a band, etc.

Doing something because it's your JOB does not make it more satisfying or inherently more valuable than doing something YOU chose to do because you like to. You don't need to have a paying job to be "doing" something. There is plenty we can do on our free time-whatever the fuck we want-once we get over the idea that our interests are worthless if they aren't upholding the system. Similarly, you don't need to be in school to learn, books you are forced to read in school are NOT more legit than books you choose that coincide with your own interests. I've learned fare more from Daniel Quinn and Derrick Jensen than from any book I read in school.

On top of all that, in general, just straight up sucks! It's rarely actually fulfilling. Then I had to work at a pizza parlor wiping tables and taking orders from rude rednecks, a family member actually tole me "you're life finally has purpose", which was probably the most offensive thing I've ever been told, as it implied that all I had done in the past, before making money from it, was a waste of time and I had no purpose to be living really. Another family comment was "doesn't it feel good to know what you're finally contributing to this society"? As if I should be proud of upholding the alienating capitalist system that I despise. I refuse to take pride in that, and I will only even accept it when my spirit has been totally broken by this world.

Probably the most frustrating part, when I think about it, is that working for money isn't even necessary for our survival! Before civilization, which we have created by destroying all other cultures, there were so many different ways of living. people didn't have to trade in their precious time for money, which was then passed over for food; they just directly got their food. I won't hesitate to say that working is slavery with a different title. As population increased in America, and as it no longer became economically reasonable to hold slaves, slavery just changed forms. it simply became cheaper to pay workers a tiny amount of money and no longer have to worry about housing, feeding, clothing them. This was better for the slave owners because it was no longer their responsibility to "care" for their slaves-if they didn't get a living wage, it didn't matter. And while chattel slavery is one of the worst things that did/does exist, far worse than wage slavery, we need to think about the ways in which we're still being exploited for the benefit of the few.

I know that in reality, because of the system we live in, I probably will have to end up working at some point. But I'm so glad that I know that it is possible to survive, be happy and have a meaningful life without having to.

4. Gather - Who belongs?

How dare you turn a space meant to be about unity/ Into a place that reflects the same problems we face in society? / You claim that there is equality / But have you asked the ones effected by your misogyny? / There is no excuse for creating an environment where our sisters are made to feel self conscious, insecure, disrespected, / Constantly having to prove herself, faced with skepticism and doubt. / Being judged twice as hard, ignored but having so much heart / Or, cat calls-humiliating! / Being grabbed at-so degrading! / For everyone who believes in equality STAND WIHT US / For everyone opposed to patriarchy STAND WITH US / Sexism comes in more forms than just violence and rape, / Certain attitudes and words can alienate. / Gender's as arbitrary as race, / No tolerance for discrimination in our scene / Still a need for feminism, there was never any liberation / Given freedom to be consumerists is not a radical movement / And it may not be "cool" to stand against the crowd, don't let that hold you down! / Punk is about doing what's right even if it means going against the majority / Not just a womyn's issue, time for boys and girls alike to take control of this matter, don't stand to the side in this fight / Not one good reason for this sense of exclusion / How did these traditional views get inside and start running the show here too? / Let's FORCE THEM OUT.

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I like the way Downcast explained it: "PATRIARCHY is the structure of oppression... not simply a filial system meant only to simplify regeneration and inheritance. It is an ideology based upon subordination and dominance. It literally limits and shapes our ideas, of who we are, what we want, and how we should act towards others. It is socialization and acculturation and it is tradition. It is the precursor to our culture of violence and domination. It is all we know and despite its base nature we self-destructively continue to uphold and even rever its institutions. We participate in our own demise.

PATRIARCHY is the structure of oppression. For women it is the constant threat of violence and systematic degradation so evident in our culture. For homosexuals it is the repression and persecution. For the male it is stunted emotions and stifling gender roles. For each of us it is the blanket under which we live our lives."

There is a need for radical feminism today. We live in a patriarchal world where, generationally, men will systematically benefit and womyn will be left behind. The past feminist movements didn't really do much for "liberation", and they didn't really help us get free from patriarchy, in fact, it mostly enabled us to take part in it, yet still without an equal playing fiel'd. We were given the "freedom" to move up in a hierarchal structure, to be bosses and consumerists, to display our power over others the way men only men used to be able to-but this is not liberation as far as I'm concerned. Not that I don#t owe a lot to liberal feminism, but at the same time, as long as we live under patriarchy, I will be radical feminist. A friend of mine, let's call hr Sally, who said she was "sick of hearing about the "leaps and bounds" that women like Sandra Day O'Connor or Gloria Steinem or Kathleen Hanna have "made" showed me a cool quote: "There are white women, hurt and angry, who believed that the seventies women's movement meant sisterhood, and who feel betrayed by escalator women. Bo women who went back home to the patriarchy. But the women's movement never left the father Dick's side... There was no war. And there was no liberation. We got a share of genocide profits and we love it. We are Sisters of Patriarchy, and true supporters of national and class oppression... Patriarchy in its highest form is Euro-Imperialism on a world scale. If we're Dick's sister and want what he has gotten, then in the end we support the system that he got in all form."

I also want to empathize that feminism and the end of a patriarchy will not just benefit womyn, it means the end of oppression for all of us. Patriarchy upholds the idea that there are simply two gender roles: heterosexual male, and heterosexual female. Anything outside of that is "deviant" and "wrong". In those two narrow gender roles, we are limited so much, and we cannot enjoy the full spectrum of emotions that all of us should be able to express, but can't when we fear being harassed and ridiculed.

Not all cultures limit themselves to these two roles that patriarchy enforces. On this land, before colonialism, there were lots of different ways of living. In many of them, homosexuality was not deviant, it was not wrong or unnatural as we are taught in the dominant culture today. Womyn were not restricted to being in the home as wives or mothers, and men were not expected to do "men's" work; there was room to go between, and it was not only accepted, it was sometimes even respected to be outside of those roles. When European settlers came through, they pushed their religious dogma upon every culture they came in contact with. it was unacceptable to them to have strong womyn, men who didn't live as the head of their families, or to be homosexual or queer. The European norms were based upon religion which lead to a life of fear and repression, and to ensure that no one would deviate from what they believed was the only way to live, they were not hesitant to use violence. Actual violence like rape and murder were tactics to destroy these cultures that lived like "heathens" and "beasts", but there was also (and still is) cultural genocide to eliminate the chances of anyone remembering the way that those cultures lived. Children were sent to boarding schools were girls were only taught how to be wives and work in the home, and boys were taught how to work on farms (even though many of the tribes had womyn who managed agriculture). It disenfranchised womyn, made us afraid to be assertive, and it forced men to take power in households and keep their emotions inside and taught them it was wrong to live any other way.

My point with all this is to show how arbitrary it is that we were born into these gender roles where we are expected to act in certain ways, and we're expected to look down upon or hate anyone who strays from them. Christians uphold that fucked up idea, and I will never forgive them for that, but atheists, punk/hardcore kids, even forward thinking Christians (if there is such a thing): how can you justify buying into this lifestyle that is so limited and oppressive to so many of us? Punk should be a threat to the dominant culture, at least in the sense that it should provide an alternative culture where we could question the things that oppress us and create a new way of living. Isn't it a little about making this a more free world based on equality? One of the most restricting aspects of our lives is that of sexism and patriarchy, and it is not questioned enough in hardcore. It's rarely challenged, and sadly, it's often amplified here!

I think what most people don't realize is that sexism does not have to be OVERT to be sexist; usually sexism is internalized and shows itself in the more subtle ways. You don't have to beat or rape a womyn to be sexist. Internalized sexism is most common in our society and it surfaces through certain attitudes, words, and assumptions we make. The subtleties may seem invisible to us because it is so common and accepted in the dominant culture so we rarely even recognize them as being sexist!

I Interviewed a few girls in the hardcore scene about their experiences with sexism. it was sad to learn that the things they talked about were common experiences amongst so many other girls. Womyn have to deal with enough stereotypes and harassment in our everyday lives so the last place we should have to put with it is at a punk or hardcore show. This should be a safe space for all of us, not a place that mirrors the exact shit that we can't stand in the "outside" world. No girl should leave a show feeling alienated because of her gender-hardcore/punk is not the place for that kind of exclusion. When one girl I interviewed, let's call her jane, wrote that "there were shows where I would come home in tears feeling so shitty and disrespected", I felt very let down by this "counter-culture". She wrote, "I was called a "Bandaid" for almost a year because many guys thought that I was in hardcore for the guys. I still get questioned the first time I meet guys in hardcore and many are skeptical for a long time before they actually accept me." The funny thing is that this stereotype that girls in hardcore have had to fight for years is rarely applied to males in the scene, no matter how they treat girls. For example, Jane explains that she is "appalled when bands decide they want to try to get with me. I've had innumerable interactions with guys in bands thinking I'll hook up with them because they are in a band. I'fe had guys try to kiss me, I've been grabbed so many times I can't even count. I've had so many cat-calls made that it makes me sick."

We shouldn't have to put in a situation where we're always having to prove ourselves; that leads to over-compensating, and hence, the "tough-guy" attitude gets taken on by girls as well. Another girl, we'll call her Mary, wrote that "sexism in the hardcore scene has always made me extremely self conscious." it breaks my heart that any girl should be made to feel self-conscious at a hardcore show just because of the fact that she's a girl. She continued, "I always feel so insecure dancing because I know that everyone is usually looking at the girl dance and judging her twice as hard as any guy. I just feel like I have to prove myself constantly, prove that I'm not just some girl hanging out for all the boys, prove that my heart is actually in it. And it seems like the boys don't." Jane wrote, "I see guys come in with less heart than me and they are accepted almost instantly. If any guy was faced the opposition I've faced from rumors, remarks and comments, 10 to 1 [he] would have dropped out way long ago."

I suppose some males find it hard to believe that girls could possibly be interested in music or dance that is aggressive, because traditionally, that is a "male" trait. They cannot believe that a girl would be here unless she was a "band aid"/"groupie" because traditionally, womyn just want the companionship of a man so she couldn't possibly be a strong individual who can be happy on her own, or with another womyn, or just simply likes hardcore. Again, all these assumptions and prejudices are results of buying into the lies we've been fed by being born into a sexiest culture.

We need to draw the connections between what's fucked up about racism and what's fucked up about sexism. As I said earlier, sometimes it's hard to even recognize sexist behavior because it is so ingrained that it becomes invisible to us, but that doesn't mean that it isn't still upholding an oppressive structure. The same is true for racism as it is for sexism: it's absurd to make claims about a group of people and turn social constructs into behaviouralist arguments. I'm sure in the days of slavery in the U$, calling a black person a name like "nigger" was generally accepted and to many ignorant white people, it wasn't overt racism-the injustice of it was invisible to them. However, now it should be perfectly clear why that mind set is fucked up, and we shouldn't tolerate it-and we should extend our understanding of that concept to issues like sexism.

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Donnerstag, 17. April 2014

Gather & Seven Generations Split

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