Her Country

We could all learn from the women in country music

This week’s Choose the Bear guest is Marissa R. Moss, author of Her Country and badass country music journalist. Marissa has built a career talking about women in country- from her groundbreaking Rolling Stone exposé of sexual harassment in country music to her Substack, Don’t Rock the Inbox which features the women that country radio won’t play.

In this current political moment, it is perhaps unsurprising that country music remains one of the most stubbornly misogynistic genres in the world. Pop radio has always played female artists and even rap now has more female stars (that I can name, but I’m old) than male. Of course, those women are still subject to the realities of the patriarchy but many country radio stations still won’t play more than one woman per hour if you can believe it. The system is so heavily rigged that even the biggest women in country music can’t get their music played or supported, and the industry has lost its biggest stars, from Taylor Swift to The Chicks, while its sexism and racism resulted in possibly the pettiest country masterpiece of all time, Cowboy Carter.

Politically, Republicans have built a brand on misogyny, racism, and a fantastical delusion that the “good old days” that never existed were so much better than the socialist hellscape that we are living in now (I wish). Is it really a surprise that they expect their music to play the same tune?

Of course, it’s not their music, and the women are making that clear. The Chicks won’t step foot in Nashville, Miranda Lambert publicly supports her gay brother and sang the theme song for a season of Queer Eye, Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris took their country music to pop radio and became huge stars, and country women have been singing loudly about domestic violence, female independence, and the general shittiness of men since the beginning of time. Today, countless young women are making brilliant albums and building devoted fan bases even when country radio won’t play their songs by subverting the system and defying the big labels.

And it’s not just a feminist movement. More and more Black, Latine, and Indigenous country artists are building careers outside of the machine and reminding listeners that country music’s roots are Brown. Country radio may have a chokehold on the industry, but these artists are refusing to let that stop them. I see the same in politics. The Party may own the mainstream southern narrative, but on TikTok and Substacks and in college dorms and high school halls they are losing the fight. The kids aren’t listening to Lindsey Graham, they are listening to each other. And the song they are singing is a different tune entirely.

Country music plays an important part in the narrative that the South is trying to tell, and in how we see it. Writers like Marissa are working hard to make sure that we see the truth, and not just what the men behind the curtain want to show us. If we can look beyond what the industry is selling us, we’ll see a genre of witty, funny, talented, and intelligent voices that look as diverse as the rest of the country, and maybe we’ll also see a better future for all of us.

Pull Out Your Wallets

My best friend’s son lost his father recently and the sudden and unexpected loss has has a profound effect on both of them. I have known Luke since he was a tiny, sweet little kid and now he is 15 and dealing with the biggest loss of his life. His mom, meanwhile, is dealing with the reality of the economic and emotional expense of the sudden loss of a child’s parent and it is overwhelming. Some friends put together this GoFundMe to support some of the costs of Luke’s education that his mom, who works at a nonprofit, is now bearing on her own. If you have a few pennies to spare, please consider donating to help them in this really really difficult moment.

Put Down Your Phone

Last week, a friend told me about the Steppin’ app and said that it has significantly reduced her screen time. Since all I want in life is to go back to the days of the Nokia brick phone, I downloaded it immediately and my life has already changed. Steppin’ restricts your usage of the apps of your choosing to a number of minutes based on how many steps you got that day. Want to use Instagram for two minutes? You’d better get in 200 steps! I have found myself taking extra walks to earn more steps but, surprisingly, I get more satisfaction out of not using all of my minutes than I thought I would. Doom scrolling be gone! Is this the app that saves the world? It might be.