As a feminist, I believe that it is very important that women in STEM have opportunities to succeed in their fields. Whether their bands are considered screamo, thrash, emo, or mathcore, these chicks have been killing it lately, shattering the glass ceiling one breakdown at a time.
Sadly, women in STEM are commonly underpaid in comparison to their male counterparts. Sure, most dudes in these types of bands aren’t exactly raking in cash, either, but sometimes they get an extra drink ticket or two. Shouldn’t women get more drink tickets? Chicks love wine, right?
Women in STEM also have to deal with constantly being compared to other women in the music industry, even if their bands sound nothing alike. Not every woman sounds like Paramore. Some of them sound like Evanescence or Jinjer.
Okay, maybe those bands aren’t STEM either, but the singers are chicks, and sometimes they scream, right? That’s still more STEM than the pop stuff that Paramore have been doing recently — their last album didn’t even have gutturals!
It doesn’t help that Warped Tour, aka punk rock summer camp, is no longer traveling cross-country. Back then, women could see a few female-fronted bands in their prime provided the set times didn’t clash. What are we supposed to do now? Introduce girls to these subgenres ourselves? Look, I want my little sister to develop a decent musical taste, but if she scratches any of my records, I will kill her.
My point is that women in STEM need more role models to look up to. Schools should give out scholarships to girls interested in these subgenres, or at least gift them an I Hate Sex album or two on Bandcamp. If we get enough parents to rally the school board, we could even negotiate an increase in STEM funding and form some new acts for next year’s Battle of the Bands.
Right now, the average woman can’t even name three songs. That’s not a good look for our education system. Math classes in some states claim to follow a “common core” curriculum, but their outdated textbooks fail to educate kids about more recent mathcore bands like SeeYouSpaceCowboy and The Callous Daoboys. We have got to do better for our daughters.
Wait, you were asking if I support women in the sciences? What bands do they listen to?