Sunday, June 28, 2020

Is it so Important that the Dixie Chicks are Now the Chicks?

I'm not asking rhetorically. It's more like I'm asking for people's opinions, because I don't know what to make of the name change. One way or another, their new video, "March March,"



is badass.

Did they need to drop "Dixie" from the name of the band? Are Klansmen very pleased by this change, shouting, "Yes! Finally!" ?

Another thing that it makes me think of is that some people at some times in history would still greatly object to the name Chicks and call it degrading to women. "I'm not a chick -- I'm a WOMAN!" I say "at some times in history" because I don't know whether and/or how much these things have changed. I know that in 1989 and 1990, when I was 28 and 29, I was friends with a 19- and 20-year-old woman who got mad whenever I called her a girl instead of a woman, and the last time she got so angry that for 30 years I've been very careful not to refer to a grown-ass woman as a girl. Well, maybe I've loosened up about that a little bit in the past couple of years.

Anyway, in 1989 and 1990, this 19- and 20-year-old woman was a huge fan of Sinead O'Conner, so big a fan that she was seriously considering shaving her head, which was somewhat more unusual for women to do in 1990 than it is now.

And then in 1992, Sinead O'Conner released her 3rd album, and its title was Am I Not Your Girl? and I laughed and laughed and laughed, although I was still so scared of the white-hot anger of that women whom I had not seen for 2 years that I was still very careful to use the term "woman." In fact, by then it had become ingrained habit. Even though by then the Riot Grrrrl punk rock movement was underway, and then a little later there came the Dixie Chicks, now the Chicks,


and it seemed as if the term "girl" and other similar terms, like "chick," might have changed a bit in their usage. But I haven't actually talked with any feminists about this.

Hey, I could do that now!

We could all do a lot of talking to each other now about language and respect and preferences and whether I should have laughed so much when I heard the title of Sinead O'Conner's third album, and all sorts of stuff.

Be sure and watch that new video by The Chicks.

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