This week, Tiger Beatdown presents "LADYPALOOZA: The Tiger Beatdown Lilith Fair Experience, But If Lilith Fair Didn't Suck, And Also Were a Blog." In other words, it's ladybloggers talking music, both listening-to (check out this rumination on the "Cuomo/Phair conundrum") and playing it (find out why being in a band with capital-D Dudes can turn you into a man-hating feminist!) In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady Doyle and I exact revenge on the boys with Kurt Cobain haircuts, wonder why Ren Faires are always located within walking distance of the Train to Gropetown, and discuss how smokin' hot St. Vincent is, am I right fellas? Plus, a bonus gallery of male-dominated subcultures!

SADY: Well, good morning! Are you prepared... TO ROCK??? I myself am underprepared to rock. But, for those about to rock: I do, in fact, salute them!

AMANDA: Same here! I have to admit that I'm perhaps not the best lady to be standing up for the rights of ladies to rock, because I actually really suck at playing music. The question is whether this is on account of my being a lady or not? Discuss.

SADY: Well: Here is the thing. When I was a wee young pre-blogger, of about the age of eleven or twelve, I discovered a variety of music! Such as the Juliana Hatfield (DON'T YOU JUDGE ME) and the PJ Harvey. And I was like, "ladies who are in bands get to yell about things that are personally offensive or troubling for them! A lot! Surely, this is my career path."

AMANDA: Hahah. Almost!

SADY: Yes! So I got a guitar, and I told all of the boys in school with Kurt Cobain haircuts that if they wanted to help me learn this "guitar," we could be in a band together.

AMANDA: Sounds reasonable.

SADY: And then one of them, the cutest one, the one that I liked best, told me why I was not getting any positive responses. He sat me down, and he said: "The thing is, we don't play girl music." And now I am a blogger, and still cannot play guitar, although my brother can, because I gave it to him, THE END. So, like: The question of ladies in music is one I like to think about, because (a) FUCK YOU TYLER FUCK YOU RIGHT IN THE KURT COBAIN HAIRCUT YOU WEREN'T THAT CUTE, and (b) I feel like, as a venue for angry or self-obsessed or confrontational expression, people have a VESTED INTEREST in barring ladies from the field of rock music, really!

AMANDA: I see the same sad sexism in a lot of different subcultures, and I think women are often drawn to these spaces because they're outside of the mainstream – because the mainstream marginalizes them, but perhaps in a different way than it does sensitive rocking Kurt Cobain haircut boys.

SADY: Agreed!

AMANDA: So on the one hand, you'd think the subculture would be totally interested in accepting women – how rejecting of mainstream values is that! – but on the other hand, the subculture is also about building a culture around the primacy of the sensitive rocking Kurt Cobain haircut boy's particular flavor of marginalization, and when women come in with some other shit to talk about it tends to threaten that dynamic.

SADY: Right. I mean, not to re-iterate an old cliche, but: The guitar is a tried-and-true way, not only for Wussy Guy to become Charismatically Sensitive Guy, but for men to sort of build hierarchies outside of the gym class where they are all getting wedgies. And I think women are drawn to rock or indie rock or whatever the kids with the cool haircuts are doing these days – and I'm not even trying to exclude other genres, this is just the genre in which I have the most experience – because, they think, "a-ha! Outsiders! As a lady, I am kind of BY DEFAULT an outsider, in that I am not a dude!" But the dudes are like, "you don't get it. We WERE outsiders. But we built a WHOLE NEW INSIDE, for us specifically, so that we wouldn't have to be outsiders any more. And now you are not invited."

Male-Dominated Subculture B: Weed.

AMANDA: Exactly. But the same thing happens time and time again, which is that women are used in a very mainstream way in these subcultures, as a) prizes to show just how powerful the subculture has become, because these weird boys fuck all the hot girls now, b) uncool people that must be excluded in order to maintain the outsider vibe or c) tokens.

SADY: Right. I mean, who doesn't like St. Vincent? Or Neko Case? Or that girl from Rilo Kiley who was in the Fred Savage video game movie?

AMANDA: Well, if you don't like them, at least you think they are hot.

SADY: Yes! For also, who has not visited a publication of review for music, and seen the reviewer dedicate a substantial amount of time that could have been spent talking about music to, instead, talking about the lady's sexual charisma and appearance, and/or the comment section devolving into a mass vote as to whether or not the male commentariat would Hit It? But when it is time to talk about these women musically, folks get shifty and bored and start derailing the conversation so that they can get into a conversation about folks who are doing this "better" and also happen to be dudes.

AMANDA: Yeah, it's sad. And it's not in any way confined to the world of music. You can find the same patterns with pot, and with comics, and with goth, and sometimes in the gay community (D.C. has like one lesbian bar and a jillion gay bars, and gay men are much more visible, perhaps because they don't even require the girlfriends), and can I tell you about the awful things I've heard about what happens to some women who are into Ren Faire stuff? GROPE-CENTRAL, for when the male and female nerds congregate for their yearly olde-tyme fantasy shindig, the misogyny, it is also olde-tyme.

Male-Dominated Subculture C: Nerd.

SADY: Oh, man! And, yes: I think we even did a Ye Olde Sexist Beatdowne, about this, in Oldyn Tymes! My experience of lady-nerds is that they tend to be huge and fairly hardcore feminists. And I was like, "that's funny, I never thought of feminism as a particularly nerdy thing," but then I realized (a) I was on the Internet, and (b) male nerd subculture tends to be like INTENSE in its misogyny! Lady-nerds seriously grab on to feminism like it is a buoy and they are drowning, because it is! And they sort of are! And women in music sometimes do the same thing, see: Riot Grrrl, duh. Formed in reaction to dudes with floppy Kurt Cobain haircuts, at least one of whom was ACTUALLY KURT COBAIN. (Though he was a huge feminist, God bless.)

AMANDA: Yeah. It's not that I don't appreciate and understand men who are alternative in appearance or interest or values or whatever needing a space that's outside the mainstream that's their own.

SADY: Maybe they could all become Male Studies Majors?

Male-Dominated Subculture D: Male Studies.

AMANDA: BUT. I wonder if some of the disconnect here is in these guys thinking that their asymmetrical haircut or interest in Magic: The Gathering is like the most intensely othering experience that a human can have? And are unaware that there are some other people around who may have that experience of being othered no matter which subculture they attempt to access.

SADY: Right. Exactly. And, on that note, I think we've been talking about how women are viewed as Objects of the Male Gaze, or how they try to fit in to male-dominated subcultures. BUT, I think we should also note that women in rock music have been some of the most enduring models for female rebellion? Like, as in many cases, I find that the solution for not liking the scene you are in is to (a) make your own scene, which is (b) comprised of girls. Which is why we keep talking about Riot Grrrl in 2010. Or ladies who were never really IN a scene, like PJ, or Liz Phair, who wrote an entire album about how sick she was of the dudes in her scene, or Tori Amos, who was like, "well, I can't play your fancy guitars, gentlemen, but I did take some piano lessons!" And the extent to which the ethos of Tiger Beatdown is informed by the PJ Harvey song "50 Foot Queenie" is NOT TO BE UNDERESTIMATED. Hey: I'm the king of the world. You wanna hear my song?

AMANDA: Haha. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

SADY: Yes, no matter what PJ Harvey had to get through to become PJ Harvey, she did in fact record the sound of herself playing guitar really loud and screaming the phrase "YOU BEND OVAH, CASANOVA" and thus, I think, became a model for A Certain Variety of Conflict Management for many a lady person.

Emo shot by xJasonRogersx; sexy stormtroopers by RyanWelshPhotography.com; both Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Speaking of pot and sex: Celeb Stoner reports—and the Marijuana Policy Project confirms—that executive director Rob Kampia has returned to the organization after a 90-day leave of absence. Kampia returned to his position today after the MPP board took a vote on the issue yesterday (Kampia is also a member of the board). When Kampia stepped down on Jan. 19, in order to undergo therapy to deal with his "attitudes toward women," MPP chairman Peter Lewis said that Kampia's leave would be 90 days at a minimum, at which point the board would reconsider Kampia's role in the organization. By my count, the board actually reinstated Kampia a few days shy of the 90-day period. Perhaps it's a move to stave off more bad press: As Celeb Stoner notes, Kampia's projected return fell serendipitously around 4/20.

So I logged on to the High Times Web site today, as you do, and I came across a typical ad targeting pot enthusiasts: A woman dropping her lacy panties alongside the teaser, "Want to see more? We know you want to!" Users who are interested in seeing more are introduced to  "The Whizzinator," a dildo that really looks like a penis.

At first, I was confused by the marketing strategy here. How effective is it to lure people into purchasing a fake (but highly realistic) penis by implying the promise of a vagina? Perhaps I am underestimating the target audience for High Times advertising, but I imagine that many a typical heterosexual dude who eagerly clicks on those panties only to find a selection of penises would be hit with such a raging case of homo- and transphobia that he would be unlikely to invest in the services advertised. But then I investigated the Whizzinator further, and things became even curiouser.

The Whizzinator, as the name implies, is a dildo that facilitates faux pissing. "The Whizzinator Strap-On XXX is the cleanest way to get dirty," the ad copy reads. "This ultra hygenic and sterile ultimate wet sex simulator is designed with sensual pleasure in mind." A Whizzinator comes with a syringe, "synthetic urine pack," heat packs, an instruction manual, and a condom. "Golden Shower" refills of freeze-dried pee are also available.

That's where the Whizzinator's next advertising turn comes in—though explicitly marketed to those who want to incorporate safe, clean urination into their sex lives, a colleague reminded me that the Whizzinator might also be of particular use to men who use drugs, and may resort to fake-peeing through a prosthetic penis in an attempt to pass a drug test. A-ha, so the Whizzinator is of immediate interest to the High Times' target audience.

So why send them through these various marketing hoops in order to get them to purchase a negative test result? I imagine it has something to do with those phobias. When you're trying to sell lifelike penis accessories to hetero men, perhaps it helps to give the more sensitive among them an excuse to say, "Hey—I found this penis accessory by clicking on some naked chick."

The Whizzinator retails for $139.95. And the strangest thing about the marketing here? It is available in white, brown, black, tan and "Latino."

A friend* pointed me to an interesting divide in the Maine election results: While only 47 percent of Maine voters opted to keep same-sex marriage legal, a full 59 percent voted to legalize medicinal marijuana. By my expert analysis, that means that a significant percentage of Maine's voters are raging potheads who hate gay people.

Here are the latest election results:

Overturn same-sex marriage:

Yes: 53 percent

No: 47 percent

Legalize Medicinal Marijuana:

Yes: 59 percent

No: 41 percent

So, which residents of Maine are fighting for their right to get high while expressing their disregard for the civil rights of gay people? My friend floats a theory: Frat guys?

* In order for me to steal his idea, he insisted that he be described as "sexy."

Photo by wstryder, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

In "Weed Culture Is Boob Culture," I argued that women feel alienated from the pot advocacy movement because female stoners are marketed as objects (above) instead of heroes (every pot movie ever). Yes, boobs are used to sell everything from beer to hamburgers, but it's particularly depressing when misogyny rears its ugly head in the counter-culture.

Even as a woman, I don't need any special badge to drink beer or eat a hamburger—these consumption habits are, in fact, difficult to avoid in mainstream America. But if there's one thing America likes more than beer and burgers, it's boobs. Boobs are used to sell beer and hamburgers because mainstream America's ideal subject—the person those advertisements are speaking to—is a red-meat-eatin', six-pack-guzzlin', butt-rock-blastin' heterosexual male. Now, people who don't fit that ideal American subject—women, gays, vegans, people who reject pandering, etc.—turn to the counter-culture, where they can be given space to create their own subjective experiences.

Theoretically. Because time and again, women have knocked on the door of the counter-culture—the comic book authors, the emo kids, and yes, the marijuana users—only to be shut out of the conversation. And so, even in pot culture, an effective ad shows a woman laying naked, covered in marijuana, staring coyly back at you and not smoking. Again, the ideal smoker is a heterosexual male.

Discuss:

Booby writes:

It seems like everywhere I look, boobs are advertising EVERYTHING, not just fake weed and crappy vaporizers. Yes, our whole mainstream culture is sexist. Do I need remind you about the Coors girls?

The counterculture as whole, however, is much more feminist and progressive, especially when compared to mainstream culture. Hippies really don’t care what you look like, which is awesome. Any culture that supports hairy legs and armpits isn’t sexist.

Dunlap writes:

Sorry to say but this article is misguided. The key fact here is this – Correlation does not imply Causation. That is to say; the 18-25 year old males like weed. They also like tits. This does not mean that the two are related in any way.

The pictures you posted were all from one site, not that I doubt you could find others elsewhere, I’m just saying. legalbuds.com does not sound like a “weed culture” site at all. In fact, they probably don’t want weed legalized, considering the fact that if something that actually got you high were legal, they’d probably go out of business in a heartbeat. This is marketing – and we all know that sex sells.

Now, again, I’m not at all denying that guys, and especially stoned guys, like tits. This is a given. But to say that it dominates the culture any more than anywhere else, to say that “Weed culture is dude culture” is totally unfair.

Hunter writes:

It was images like these that made me stop buying “High Times.” And it wasn’t just advertisements that were sexist; they were pictures (including covers) published from HT. When a woman wrote to the editor and complained about it, the editorial staff were total assholes – they told her to loosen up from her “repressed sexuality.” Finding images such as these offensive means you have a repressed, distorted sexuality? Please. I really didn’t want to support that magazine anymore. I do think using these types of images will aleniate some women (and some more progressive men) from some avenues to support the movement. (Note: it was quite a while ago; probably 7 or 8 years ago).

Kim writes:

As a female cannabis activist, I too am put off by the sexism. Even the local smoke shop down the street has huge posters all over the store of half dressed babes selling papers, pipes, vaporizers, whatever. They don’t get any business from me. It’s uncomfortable. And they obviously don’t care how I feel.

Old Corporate Boys Club…even here. Sad.

Numismatics writes:

Whether you accept it or not, the constant message that our ass is what matters is alienating, disappointing, and isolating. And it is UBIQUITOUS. Not only that, it really hammers home the message that this is not a woman’s domain-it discourages us from achieving. I’m not saying this because I am an angry feminist who hates men (I am an angry feminist who LOVES men!) but I am really surprised at how some men can NOT understand some of the mindfucks women go through (not that you don’t get your share, too) and then it occurs to me that many don’t seem to care, and many just constantly parrot “There’s no sexism anymore! It’s all better now!” Well, if that helps them sleep at night….

Ads that have this sort of advertising (and, more specifically, AN OVERREPRESENTATION of this sort of advertising) are really being blatant about the role women have to play in this context, and frankly, that’s a message many of us have heard enough of. I know it’s marketing; I know sex sells, but to me, boobs aren’t sex. And yet I am supposed to read them as such, everywhere I see them. Like, is that supposed to turn me on, too? (Don’t answer that.) Getting to define ’sexy’ is a power I would like to have, too. But I am not encouraged to do so–I am encouraged to cover my face with paint and keep my body as thin as possible. Sex being used to sell has a lot of pernicious effects on our minds and bodies, and by ‘our’ I mean both men and women.

Steven writes:

Your arguments are unfounded and from what I have read of your blog thus far, often taken out of context. You’re not helping the movement at all, whether that be for the females or the female pot smokers. Dunlap really covered most of it but to simplify things, we can assume from the marketing that more men are going to read high times or the ads in the back than women. Perhaps more guys are interested in Legal Buds than women are. So the companies are correctly marketing as such. But to say that weed culture is dude culture or imply that the movement or the culture in itself is inherently sexist is simply not backed up at all.

There’s plenty of sexist things you can fight against in this country. If Legal Buds, Coors Light and Carl’s Junior want to market their products towards men, they have every right to. Men respond to images of the female body and sex. That’s what we like. Leave pot and pot culture out of this debate.

Also, have you ever been to a pot rally? Anecdotally, I know just as many female stoners and activists as male ones. Do some research before you make these claims, I’m glad you’ve received the comments you have, this simply is not good journalism.

Cash writes:

It is really telling, when reading through the comments, that most of the commentators who think this is a nonissue are men, and the ones who say this DOES have an impact are women. Its just interesting how women come out and say “I am put off by this kind of advertising. It does have an effect on me, and on the women I know” and then the men come here to basically say “No it doesn’t! I don’t see sexism anywhere! You’re wrong!”

Why aren't there more female marijuana activists, Marijuana Policy Project employee Laura Greenback asks in High Times. Ooh! Pick me! I know the answer!

It's not that women don't like smoking weed. We do. And it's not that we don't care about the ass-backwards war on drugs—despite Greenback's fears, half of the MPP's top staff are women. It's not that there are too few pop-culture stoner females, as Double X suggests—though we're getting warmer!

Women don't identify with marijuana activism because weed culture is dude culture. On the surface, a lot of the trappings of weed culture are coed-ready: women, too, can get high, blast Phish, play hacky sack, and stuff miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into our faces. But even if we're allowed to strap on a fucking hemp necklace and toke up with the boys, we will still have to deal with the tits. Let's check out the advertising paired with Greenback's piece:

There's the sexy vaporizer shot (above). There's the weed bikini shot (below):

And then there's this:

Seriously? Pot vagina? No strength of medicinal could calm the nausea that ad just inspired.

Here's what these advertisements say to women: Weed isn't for you. It's for men. (Also for men? Your boobs). And the targets of those advertisements—high school and college guys—often echo those misogynist attitudes.  You know what's even more annoying than a misogynist? A misogynist who is high out of his mind. No wonder we tend to skip the pot rallies.

MORE: Why misogyny in the counter-culture is more annoying than mainstream misogyny.