Saturday, September 06, 2003
I saw a new band on telly that called themselves The Suffrajets so I thought I'd try and find out what was behind the misspelling (hey, it's Saturday night and I'm bored, OK?). Didn't have far to look, the band bio sets their stall very quickly. Second paragraph in fact:
But despite what their name may suggest, The Suffrajets aren’t a bunch of radical pseudo political feminists, out to lead the next generation of girl power wannabe’s. They’re not bemoaning teenagers, fuelled by anger and betrayal; they are sisterhood driven by their sheer love of making music.
And founding member Gemma is keen to dismiss the preconceptions that the name may conjure up in a male dominated world; ‘You hear the name and you think of the whole women’s movement, but that’s why we changed the spelling. We take from the original Suffragettes only the women’s connection, but we don’t have all the same women’s rights and beliefs. The only connection we have is the fact we are female, that’s it. We try and make it quite clear to people, we’re not women’s libbers, we don’t hate men, we’re just a band with girls in it who just want to play music’.
Now, if you called yourself The Spice Girls or Four Empty Headed Barbie Dolls I wouldn't much care what your politics were. But to take such a name, then try to distance yourself from any of the associations that that name brings sets my teeth on edge. The least they could do is not to continue the stereotypes that anyone interested in 'women's lib' is a man-hater, and as for suggesting that the real suffragettes were 'radical pseudo political feminists'...
But despite what their name may suggest, The Suffrajets aren’t a bunch of radical pseudo political feminists, out to lead the next generation of girl power wannabe’s. They’re not bemoaning teenagers, fuelled by anger and betrayal; they are sisterhood driven by their sheer love of making music.
And founding member Gemma is keen to dismiss the preconceptions that the name may conjure up in a male dominated world; ‘You hear the name and you think of the whole women’s movement, but that’s why we changed the spelling. We take from the original Suffragettes only the women’s connection, but we don’t have all the same women’s rights and beliefs. The only connection we have is the fact we are female, that’s it. We try and make it quite clear to people, we’re not women’s libbers, we don’t hate men, we’re just a band with girls in it who just want to play music’.
Now, if you called yourself The Spice Girls or Four Empty Headed Barbie Dolls I wouldn't much care what your politics were. But to take such a name, then try to distance yourself from any of the associations that that name brings sets my teeth on edge. The least they could do is not to continue the stereotypes that anyone interested in 'women's lib' is a man-hater, and as for suggesting that the real suffragettes were 'radical pseudo political feminists'...
