When writing about feminism, my typical style is news or commentary. It’s usually polemical, as I try to piece together stories that highlight injustice, hoping that readers feel seen in their anger or empowered by learning something new. That’s what feminism can be – protesting, marching, exposing injustice and finding power through collective anger and a will to change. I don’t, however, write about art. Can art be feminist, and what does this look like? Is art even political and, if so, what can we learn from it? As someone who came to this year’s Feminist Folk Club Festival knowing nothing about folk music, I was struck by the quiet power expressed through this female art. The best stories are not always told in broadsheets and tabloids, speeches or podcasts. They’re told through lyrics; music is another vehicle for exploring the complexities of womanhood. The Feminist Folk Club Festival attests to this. It taught me that music is just another weapon in the feminist’s arsenal.
On a sunny March afternoon, in the midst of bustling Camden Town, I found the inconspicuous Cecil Sharp House, a community space dedicated to championing folk arts, keeping a rich English cultural tradition alive. English folk music has been around since the medieval period, and is characterised by oral traditions passed across generations. Essentially, it’s music that’s for the people, by the people. Folk is a rich and broad genre but, as Lucy Ward discussed at the festival, it is traditionally steeped in misogynistic stereotypes. Women in traditional folk songs usually fall into two categories: victims of violence or a passive lover yearning for her sailor to return. They are stories of submission told through a male gaze. But this festival is reshaping the role of women within folk music, giving a platform for musicians like Jasmine Kennedy and Daisy Beau, whose music touches on the experience of being a woman in the modern age. It’s the beautiful tradition of folk, reframed and charged with female power.
Daisy Beau’s set alone, for me, turned my assumptions about folk and the boundaries of the genre on their head. I think most people, when they think of folk singers, think of women in floaty patterned skirts and Doc Martens whimsically skipping through meadows, longing for a lost love. Female folk can be this, but it is also so much more. Daisy sung about finding her way out of a relationship and the start of new relationship with music. Her song, Sabina, touched on what it’s like to go back to your favourite childhood books and films, and realise you are none of the women they present. To wake up and realise they were products of a male gaze, which as you desperately reach from them, you realise don’t exist. I saw many nods of solidarity and recognition from the audience during this song, from teenagers to elderly women. I could feel a quiet simmering anger in the room; most of us will spend our adult lives trying to shake off these cultural stereotypes and work out who we really are beneath the bullshit.
Jasmine’s Kennedy also built on these themes, but with a Northern twist (which, as a Yorkshire girl, pleased me greatly). I didn’t think it was possible to combine a love song to a woman and to Yorkshire in one song, but she did it. Her next song touched on a very different theme – mental health waiting lists. She sang about being given the “cheer up luv” attitude when dealing with mental health, being told that “breathing techniques” would work in the meantime whilst she was stuck at the end of the NHS’s backlog. Yet, she made a heavy topic also very funny. For any creative, the power to express the intensity of the dark sides of womanhood, whilst providing humorous relief, is a challenge, and I was in awe of her talent.
Emily Portman, who has had a long career in folk singing and songwriting, and is now a mother of daughters, sang of the fear which doesn’t seem to go away at any age – being a women after dark. One song was inspired by an instance of harassment whilst she was walking alongside the Merseyside duing her 30-minute a day walk during COVID. Again, I didn’t think it was possible to incorporate English folklore and myths into a song about reclaiming the night, but she did it.
As I hope this brief outline has shown, these female artists captured eloquently and beautifully the experiences of womanhood – from the mundane to the political. Heartbreak, the male gaze, intersectional identity and women’s safety; in a few songs, they demonstrated the women of folk today refuse to be put in one box. They showed that a song can have a political message, and be moving to listen to. It’s music which combines politics and pleasure, education and entertainment.
I saw men, women, and, genuinely, people of all ages in the audience of this festival. I love that, and I think it attests to the importance of local community arts centres. Much of feminism in the modern world is conducted online – we follow, subscribe, like and read. The physical act of coming together and sharing art is still deeply political and, in my view, very healing. Cecil Sharp House’s first Feminist Club Folk Festival was, for me, a beautiful expression of eclectic and multifaceted female identities. In this inconspicuous community centre, another thread was weaved into the rich tapestry we call feminism.
