Feminists

I used to play in bands a lot here in town. Before shows, we really didn't have dressing rooms, so we were out in the crowd. There was always some sweaty guy with a comb-over and a used-to-be-white undershirt that had turned yellow (and brown in some places too) who would hold his beer glass over his head yell, "Play some Skynyrd!" He'd spill beer everywhere and fall toward me and make some crude sexual comment, as if that would win me over even if I was a straight woman. It just gagged me. I thought about quitting music, at least in public, over it. I think my eventual decision to quit playing in bands was at least partly because of that.

The only time I ever really felt respected in a bar was when I went to a bar in upstate NY to see the producer of my band's demo's band play. Those guys were great and their fans were great. There were just as many women at the club as men and the men there respected women and you could tell it. Down here where I live, though? Pfft. I'd rather get a tooth pulled with no numbing agent than set foot in another bar here.

There have been other experiences outside bars and clubs too, but I did have trouble in the bars and clubs more just because I was in them back then so much. Nowadays, I hardly ever go to a bar unless it is a gay friendly or gay bar.