Of music, sexists, and misanthropes

I am not a sexist. A sexist believes that women are inherently inferior to men and the sexes should therefore be held to different standards and be treated differently by society. I do not believe this.

However, I am a misanthrope. And I do direct a disproportionate amount of my misanthropic feelings towards women. It's not my fault though.

You see, as someone who statistically has been exposed to more advertising in my lifetime by age 20 than my great-grandparents saw in their century on this earth, I hold a special disdain for marketing. And marketing is 99% about S-E-X, and lots of it. From the blatant images to the subtle themes to the throngs of young women pitching bullshit products and services at every public place imaginable who feel no shame flirting with me to get me to buy widget XYZ, I've just kinda lost it. You know, respect. Respect for expressions of feminine sensuality in any context other than private.

Harsh, I know. But harboring a general dislike of mankind is not for pussies.

Anyway, enough background: a couple years ago someone who shall go nameless accused me of being a sexist because I didn't have more than five songs sung by female bands/singers in my vast iTunes collection. I objected the charge, but I couldn't deny the evidence. Part of the problem is just circumstance: I don't listen to R&B or Pop, two genres that are at least equally represented by women. But part of it is that women by and large don't make music, they make womens' music. And frankly I just can't relate.

I can relate to guy music because, well, I'm a guy. And I can relate to good music that is gender neutral in theme and experience because it's, you know, good. But most of that seems to be made by men, with female acts often standing out as clearly under-talented "tokens." I love punk rock, but Avril Levigne is shit. I love hard/goth rock, but Evanescence sucks balls. I like grunge/alternative rock, but the very thought of Courtney Love offends every deity mankind has ever worshipped. I even like sporadic doses of good ole' '90s gansta rap, but Lil' Kim - well, you get the point.

But all of this may have changed. I have unknowingly been listening to exclusively female artists for a couple weeks now. I don't know how this happened - it just did. And I didn't even become aware of it until yesterday. What two things do Chairlift, Feist, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Paramore all have in common? They comprise the sum total of bands I've been listening to for the past three weeks, and they're all led by female singers.

There you have it: not a sexist. Score one for me.