By Sarah Peart
It was the weekend after I attended an inspiring Reclaim The Night march against domestic violence that I picked up the October issue of the Australian music magazine Rolling Stone. It contained an interview with Prodigy (the latest hard rock techno band) defending its song "Smack my bitch up". The struggle against domestic violence, it became clear, is far from over.
This song is the first on the band's latest album Fat of the Land. The first thing that struck me is that this group thinks it's radical. The well-known face of the band is a man's face with a bolt through the nose and leaning on to the left side of his upper lip. He has hair that graduates from green and flat to a green towering spike, then from black and flat to blonde and flat, to black and flat, to an orange towering spike then to blonde and flat.
The kind of youth culture such appearance reflects typically wants to rebel against the conformity of capitalist society. This is a good thing. But there's rebellion and there's rebellion.
The band claims that the idea behind the song was, "Well I'm going to write a record to really get you thinking now ... We'll see how far this can be taken".
But you don't succeed in a rebellion against society, or even really challenge it, by shocking people. That's not radical. What is radical is actively trying to change the system that produces conformity to one which doesn't.
Prodigy argues that the song is "so offensive that it can't actually mean that. That's where the irony is." This approach trivialises the whole issue of violence against women and the importance of the struggle to end it. The logic is the same as that used to defend sexist remarks as "just a joke". It is condescending to women who suffer and have suffered violence and to those fighting against it.
The band continues: "When you listen to 'Smack my bitch up' you don't go out and beat your wife up, do you? ... Guys who are really into abusing women ... it's not directed to them."
Then who is it directed to? And to what purpose? In fact, advocating bashing women up, whether or not you really mean it, can only reinforce the already deeply entrenched ideology in capitalist society that violence against women is "normal" and OK. It is the dominant (sexist) ideologies in our society that will determine how the majority of people will interpret a song, not the intentions of a few members of the band which performs it.
In believing otherwise, Prodigy is ignoring the fact that sexism is systemic and therefore that even "guys who aren't into abusing women" will interpret misogynist lyrics in a sexist framework.
One of the group members, Flint, argues that "The girls that come to our shows are hard-core girls and they don't look at it [the song] as that. If some girl in an A-line flowery dress decides there's some band somewhere singing about smashing bitches up, let's get a bit militant."
Does Flint really believe that "militant women" (whatever that means) don't suffer from sexism? Or that women who aren't "militant" deserve to get a song like this shoved in their face to make them more militant?
Being "militant" is not about attending Prodigy concerts. It is about taking a stand against a system that perpetrates such harmful ideologies as sexism.
"Militant women" were those women (in A-line dresses or not) who took to the streets around the country in the Reclaim the Night marches last month, demanding an end to sexism and violence.
"Militant women" are women who speak out against fake radicalism and against sexism everywhere they see it.
"Militant women" are women who object to songs advocating bashing women up.