“Music is not just a sequence of notes.” These are words of the musical and amateur critique Leire Ziluaga, and in that all those who have approached the art of melodies from a critical perspective agree: music creates community, contributes to the construction of personal and collective identity, and Euskal Herria is no exception.

Ziluaga says more: “Each concert creates a small community in which the power relations and the attitudes that are established and reproduced tell a lot about us, about our society.” The inertia in the sessions is of particular concern to Ziluaga in recent times: Who occupies space and how? Does the reproduction work of the organization of a concert, for example: the preparation of the dinner of musicians and technicians, receive the recognition it needs?

Public cartography

So let us look around. Let's do a little memory exercise. Were we at the last rock or punk concert where we got, at the front or the back lines? Was there gender equality in the front lines? And with all the viewers of the broadcast?

The journalist and music enthusiast Ihintza Orbegozo Igartua made a clear photo: “In punk, rock and hardcore concerts, in general, kids are the protagonists, and also in front line poems. On the other hand, there are girls who rarely go in groups, most of the time they are two or three, with a larger group of boys”.

The image is different in punk feminist concerts that have been organized around Getaria and Zarautz over the past year. Ziluaga: “I’ve heard that if feminist performances are so many girls, and not the others, it’s because those girls don’t like real music. Surely, the truth is that in traditional concerts they do not feel comfortable and safe, but it is difficult to accept that a space that is comfortable for oneself is not comfortable for all people.”

The change from the marrow

What would a feminist musical scene be different in? Feminist journalist and activist Ainara Santamaria Barinagarrementeria believes that the messages of the songs are not enough: “When a group is named a feminist it is usually because it talks about the problem of women – and above all about male violence. Well, that, but it's not just that. Feminism is a vision of life, it changes everything: your way of being, your discourse, your attitude…”.

Ziluaga has the following characteristics: “It can be a scene with diversity of bodies and identities, which gives importance to care, which visualizes the work behind the organization of a concert, and which, in general, questions the various power relations that occur underneath and above the stage”.

Something similar to what the Riot grrrl movement did in EE.UU, do not start concerts until the front is made up of women, for example. In her places, Ziluaga has passed, and the difference is remarkable: “On the stage there is much more diversity, and the people who go to the festivals have another way of being. That doesn’t come from heaven, that’s happened because they’ve done a great job and women musicians are very clear: most are feminists.”

Fortunately, it is not always too late, and, by pulling that line, the MEFSST group of Zarautz has been working for three years now to make a critical reading of the situation and promote the feminist musical revolt.

Staff and political

In fact, it is surprising: in an area such as music, so closely linked to politics in the Basque Country, a more general and difficult feminist awareness is now flourishing.

For example, Santamaría has seen that, in his study on the links between music and romantic love, the staff is not considered political, although this motto is one of the basic demands of feminism: “It does not create contradictions to listeners when the usual topics are repeated when talking about love, although the same group of music, on concrete topics, try a critical discourse. The staff is still outside the public and political sphere and, in addition, in the case of love, it is not seen as a field where transformation can be carried out”.

Ziluaga believes that the time has come to end self-indulgence: “We should ask ourselves what has happened to feminism here, especially in a scene as politicized as music. We should also ask ourselves whether the scene has actually been so politicised or what happens when politics becomes rhetoric. It is significant that feminism was not included in this political rhetoric, on the agenda that was necessarily involved”.

All songs are love songs

In the opinion of Santamaría, we must pay close attention to the ideology of romantic love, precisely because it is one of the main gears to keep in force the unequal social order we live: “It seems to me that, in general, the oppression of the gender system, at the youth level, is embodied above all through love. To this must be added the importance that music has when it comes to feeling part of a collective”.

But what is romantic love? Its model is the relationship of heterosexual, eternal, monogamous, idyllic partner. That's the most important relationship, the one that gets at the center. “This model is directly related to the relationships of dependence between men and women and violence against women. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with the economic system. What would the entire music industry be without love?”

In any case, the ideology of romantic love has soaked all the issues, not just those of affective relationships. Santamaría: “The conflict, both the national and the class conflict, has had a great reflection in Basque music, and all this has been located very romantic: the figure of the gudari, the figure of freedom, the figure of the people... It is significant that this has happened, and that has brought to the discourse and imaginary: the caring woman, the fighting man”.

Point 0: Debate on the Bureau

First of all, what do you do? The interviewees agree that the first step is to raise the question. Santamaría: “We will start politically placing love and staff, and then we will see how far each comes. But the fundamental thing is to know that love, for example, is a construction. That’s point 0 and without it you can’t do anything.” In addition, it is fundamental to create other cultural references that speak of other models of love.

And the spaces, how do you transform them? Ziluaga: “It would be OK for concert organizers and theaters to take responsibility for the issue, for men to question the space they occupy in concerts, and for us to create shared strategies to make our space.” According to Ziluaga, we must go to the root and question attitudes that are completely naturalized, for example: Why do a few always have to be done at the front line? “Then I don’t know what agreement we’re going to reach, but to start with, you have to put all of that in question.”