Silly Girls, EMO's for Boys

I'm in the early stages of an academic piece on politically adversarial, female-fronted power-pop. At the heart of the piece, at least what I think will become the heart of the piece, is an examination of human agency, rock music, and political policy. Does rock music possess the ability to influence who we are and the decisions we make? While my piece focuses on the transformative potential of music, the potential to move our culture toward practices that are more egalitarian and just, what happens when rock and roll reinforces harmful beliefs, values, and attitudes? For one woman's opinion, read the following.

It is a genre made by and for adolescent and post adolescent boys, who make evident, in their lyrics and dominant aesthetic that their knowledge of actual living, breathing women is tiny enough to fit in a shoebox. Emo’s characteristic sensitive front is limited to self-sensitivity, it runs in a fanciful maze of reflexive self pity, rife with a vulnerability that is infinitely self-serving. It is a high stakes game of control—of “winning” or “losing” possession of the girl (see Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, New Found Glory and Glassjaw albums for prime examples) Yet, in the vulnerability there is no empathy, no peerage or parallelism. Emo’s yearning is not to identify with, or understand, but rather to enforce sexual hierarchy and omit women’s power via romanticide.