Joan Jett

I just watched this not quite 14 minute video: At 66, Joan Jett finally reveals the secret she hid for decades. It's a nice piece. The content doesn't really match the click bait title.

There's no "gotcha" single secret revealed. It gives some history that if I were a HUGE fan and consuming everything ever published about her the minute it's available I would almost certainly already know.

At one point, after 23 record labels rejected her project, she did live shows and they sold records out of the trunk of a car. The Black American male artist MC Hammer also sold records out of the trunk of his car at one time and I have talked elsewhere about my interest in the fight for Civil Rights for Black Americans and the tactics they use as a means to have insight into what tactics women might use.

She's apparently a "gay icon" or LGBTQ+ icon and never hid her sexual identity but also refused to let the press label her that way in a fashion that would have destroyed her privacy and possibly damaged her career. I think this makes her an especially good role model if you are LGBTQ and reminds me of various things I've written on The Genevieve Files, including Being LGBTQ in a Conservative Culture and Shut the door baby, don't say a word.

Her song Bad Reputation came out in 1980 and her album I Love Rock and Roll came out in 1981. I turned fifteen in 1980 and sixteen in 1981.

I certainly remember those songs being important at that time and remember that it was important that girls were getting strong female role models in popular music.

It's news to me that she's LGBTQ because I generally don't stalk famous people and generally don't make a point of reading everything about anyone in particular. 

Rock and Roll of that era was very strongly associated with particular attire and imagery. I generally chalked her look up to that, to signaling the rebellious message of the band with matching visuals for a consistent branding.

I trend towards short hair and always have. I've had really long hair exactly once when I was fourteen. The rest of my life it's been shoulder length or shorter, often a lot shorter.

But I also trend towards preferring skirts and dresses and a very soft look with a lot of paisley and florals.

The first piece on this site is called Assertiveness and the punchline is that no matter how polite, diplomatic, kind, gentle etc you are, if a woman chooses to not be a doormat, someone is going to call her a bitch for it.

My original handle on Hacker News was Mz. I tried to sign up as Michele and that name was already taken. I wanted something shorter not longer and already had experience with longer handles like Michele in California or Michele Zone.

I was going to go with MZ, the initials for Michele Zone, because use of initials on the forum where I was Michele Zone was common, so it felt like a familiar nickname.

I was super sick and expected a two-letter handle to be rejected and had JUST tried a standard name with standard first letter capitalized, second letter lower case. So I typoed it and wrote Mz instead of MZ and was SHOCKED when Hacker News went COOL! You can totes have that!

I briefly wondered if I should DO something about it and felt helpless to DO something about it. It was six weeks before it crossed my little pea brain that people might interpret that as a feminist handle.

At which point I decided it wasn't important enough to bother changing "because no matter what I do, people accuse me of being a feminist and imagine I walk around dressed in black leather with a cat-o-nine tails hanging out my back pocket just in case I run into some guy I want to dominate."

I finally changed it after I hit the leaderboard because it felt like pointless and excessive shit stirring. I was better received after that but I continued to be treated like nothing but a piece of ass while everyone stepped over my body in the gutter and acted like I was smoking dope to IMAGINE ANYONE was capable of earning a living online and never mind that this was blatant gaslighting because a lot of them earned a living online.

I've stopped participating, so I don't know that I accomplished much of anything. No girls allowed in the old boys club.

I did gymnastics in youth. I'm probably around 5'8" tall. I live in men's T-shirts and sweatpants these days though I never wanted that and if I HAD a life, I prefer a very femme presentation but with short hair, a la 1920s flapper era looks.

I'm absolutely certain that a lot of people online IMAGINE that I look exactly like Joan Jett with black hair and dressed in leather because I have actually had someone express surprise at how I look and TELL me "I imagined you with long, straight black hair." upon seeing a photo of me.

And that was a homeschooling mom I knew through a homeschooling list.

So I feel COMPLETELY justified in ASSUMING Joan Jett was just "branding" herself a certain way and just playing to preconceptions people have if you play a guitar and make rock music. 

In my teens, I consumed a certain amount of sci-fi with lesbian characters and the like. I have absolutely no idea what makes someone "gay" but ultimately concluded you basically got to consume SHIT promoting the idea that women get hot and bothered by being some man's property OR you could consume "gay" stuff if you were female and had two functioning brain cells and aspired to more interests than cooking, cleaning and changing diapers.

I actually WAS a homemaker and cooked a LOT but also had other interests and hobbies while raising kids.

Here's hoping someday women get viewed as whole human beings who can both have all that public sphere stuff like careers and rights and opinions and private sphere stuff like a happy personal life and we can stop insisting that women choose one or the other and stop insisting that which one they choose says something about their sexual orientation.