Anarchist Poetry: Penis Envy by Crass
Penis Envy- a theory regarding female psychosexual development in Freudian psychoanalytic theory that proposes that young girls feel deprived and envious that they do not have a penis
Thinkers think but do they do? Within the studies of philosophy and political theory, there’s a reasonable concern for some academics’ lack of action or inability to act on their research. Philosophy as an academic study is not really marketable and it surely isn’t as influential as it used to be. It’s a circle of intellectuals saying “drawing on their point” and “I think what he means by this is.” And that’s great for me personally! I study philosophy because I can apply it to my life and I feel like a more well-rounded person being familiar with different theories on how the self and the world work. Sometimes I worry it’s a self-indulgent pursuit, but then I’ll read something that justifies self-indulgence and I feel better. It’s just that simple! But what does it mean to actually do philosophy? What does it mean to embody an ideology? Is that even possible under a system that inflates identity, hobbies, and beliefs with commodities and monetary value?
Allow me to introduce you to Crass, the band that popularized the anarcho-punk movement that emerged out of the late 70s. More than that, Crass was foremost an art collective that promoted anarchy as a political ideology and cultivated a scene of DIY ethics, political dissent, and commune living. They disputed the notion of anarchy being a nihilistic ideology and instead fostered a community of individuals taking direct action towards environmentalism, political resistance, and deconstruction of social norms. Crass created their own independent music label where bands with similar political philosophies can work together to get their music to the public. Their duty was only to their ideals and they organized on the street level, meaning they hosted squat protests, vandalized corporeal advertisements, and produced leaflets spreading their message. Their music and art were provocative, but necessarily so, considering they were active during Thatcher’s and Reagon's leaderships.
Crass released Penis Envy in 1981, which can be classified as an avant-garde anarcho-punk album. While the music itself is dynamic and more catchy than other Crass albums, I’m most appreciative of the masterful lyricism that remains timeless even 40 years later. This album is saturated in ruthless and clever diatribes mocking the patriarchy, war, systemic oppression, authority, and the normative structures of society. It does not moralize these issues so much as it deconstructs social constructs by satirizing their senselessness and stupidity. In other words, this is pure anarchist poetry and the embodiment of anarchist philosophy.
Poetry is a weapon and this album gloriously uses it to shut down all institutions that operate through the oppression of others. I’ll be pointing out some lyrical highlights, relating them to political theory and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Though, it won’t do justice to the album as a whole so I suggest a listen!
Bata Motel (Track #1)
In my red high-heels I’ve no control
The rituals of repression are so old
You can do what you like, there’ll be no reprisal
I’m yours, yes I’m yours, it’s my means of survival
Eve Libertine, the lead singer of this album, criticizes society’s default view of women as weak, submissive, and feminine. In the song, she constructs the ideal image of a woman in the eyes of men. Compliant with desired traits of feminine maintenance and presentation, she reflects the wishes of the patriarchy because men hold the key to women’s salvation. Libertine touches on women’s allegiance to men because we are united by a reciprocal need. Women depend on men as the conditions of the world exist through them and men depend on women to satisfy their needs and uphold the existing conditions. This song is reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy in “The Second Sex,” where she states that a woman’s dependence on men can emanate women’s complicity to the system that oppresses her as it provides her material advantages and protection. “Woman may fail to lay claim to the stats of subject because she lacks definite resources, because she feels the necessary bond that ties her to man regardless of reciprocity, and because she is often very well pleased with her role as the Other” (Beauvoir 20). Hence, a woman will sacrifice an authentic existence to adjust to a man’s will and Libertine is acting out the role of the woman who surrendered her personhood because of patriarchal forces. For if she loses him, she loses security and safety; at the same time, she loses her autonomy and selfhood. Berketex Bride (track #6 on the album) also speaks to the feminine/masculine ‘alliance.’
Beautiful mute against the wall
Beautifully mutilated as I fall
Use me don’t lose me
Systemic Death (Track #2)
Poor fucking worker, poor little serf
Working like a mule for half of what he’s worth
Poor fucking grafter, poor little gent
Working for the cash that he’s already spent
Working for the cash that he’s already spent!He’s selling his life — She’s his loyal wife;
Timid as a mouse, she’s got her litle house
He’s got his little car, and they share the cocktail bar
She likes to cook his meals — you know, something that appeals
Sometimes, he works ’til late, so his supper has to wait
But she doesn’t really mind, ‘cos he’s getting overtime
Systemic Death. What a title. Crass criticizes the enslaved life society coerces you into through education and normalization. The endorsed path is to go to school, secure a job, start a family, and work until you die. Chained to the debts of living. Women submit to their gender roles and do unpaid domestic labor because that was the propagandized curriculum. It is a perpetual routine to work for the money that has already been allotted for your basic necessities. The woman is okay with spending less time with her husband when he works overtime showcases the value of money under capitalism versus the value of quality time and human connection. Women are enslaved to their husbands and husbands to their jobs. Together these weds are enslaved to their eventual systemic death. It’s a very hardcore message, but it compels people to evaluate their formative education and what it leads up to. Anarchists desire to live outside those systems and Crass is ultimately calling for an alternative way of living that doesn't reduce a person to a systemic value of society.
Where Next Columbus (Track #5)
A brilliant song. Probably my favorite from the album and definitely the most distinctively philosophical. Most admirably, it is THEIR philosophy.
Marx had an idea from the confusion of his head
Then there were a thousand more waiting to be led
The books are sold, the quotes are bought
You learn them well and then you’re caught
Anothers left, anothers right
Anothers peace, anothers fight
…
Sartre had an idea from the confusion of his brain
Then there were a thousand more indulging in his pain
Revelling in isolation and existential choice;
Can you truly be alone when you use anothers voice?
Anothers lies, anothers truth
Anothers doubt, anothers proofThe idea born in someones mind
Is nurtured by a thousand blind
Anonymous beings, vacuous souls
Do you fear the confusion, your lack of control?
You lift your arm to write a name
So caught up in the identity game
Who do you see? Who do you watch?
Who’s your leader? Which is your flock?
Where Next Columbus is a critique of hero-worship and society’s engagement with dominating philosophies. There is so much hypocrisy when it comes to uncritically aligning oneself to an ideology. Crass points out the irony of institutionalizing the ideas of influential figures such as Marx, Jesus, Einstein, Mussolini, and Jung. Marxists have commodified Marx’s legacy, selling his books and producing communist merchandise. I’ve noticed in authoritarian leftist communities, and more generally in leftist politics, there is a lot of group in-fighting. No matter how well versed you are in left economic policy, there will be varied interpretations that ultimately abrupt leftist unity, an arguably necessary component to leftist ideologies and their fight for progress. And even then, the leftist’s vision of peace will be a right winger’s fight for their vision of ‘peace.’
The Sartre bit called me out. I find myself idolizing people I strongly align with to counter feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood. How alone and misunderstood could I be if there are thousands of people also aligned with my beliefs? Can I truly be alone and misunderstood if someone can articulate my anxieties in their own words? It’s comforting to find someone who expresses your confusions and tries to resolve them, but it can also lead to a narrowed type of thinking. Philosophies can easily become dogmatic once you put them on a pedestal and fail to recognize that your ideals will never be universal. Crass discourages fully conforming to any set of beliefs or ideas because it sets parameters in your mind. This song is a huge critique of institutions that take certain ideologies and use them for their own purposes. When certain people or parties institutionalize some objective, the original thinker’s ideas get skewed and distorted. They become weaponized and used to wage war for profit, power, and hate. There is nothing wrong with holding an ideology if you actually believe in it, but its intention shouldn’t be to acquire power. This song addresses the foundation of anarcho-politics as I understand it. Crass is saying one should not live by a system, be it governmental or idea-based, until they think for themselves and develop views that reflect those preconceived ideas. That goes to say, you can’t necessarily trust Crass and anarchism without evaluating your ideals in relation to theirs. Also, can someone tell me if denying dogmatic truths is a dogmatic truth?
Smother Love (Track #7)
Love’s another skin-trap, another social weapon
Another way to make men slaves and women at their beckon
Love’s another sterile gift, another shit condition
That keeps us seeing just the one and others not existing
Woman is a holy myth, a gift of mans expression
She’s sweet, defenceless, golden-eyed, a gift of gods repression
If we didn’t have these codes for love, of tokens and positions
We’d find ourselves as lovers still, not tokens of possessions
Whew. This is a bomb. An attack on heteropatriarchal romance and love. Libertine argues that love, or at least the idea of heterosexual love, is a social construct that upholds the patriarchy. It’s a situation where you are applauded for submitting to society’s idea of a couple. Of course, whenever we have One ideal, we have Others that diverge from it. Relating back to Beauvoir, “the other is posed as such by the One in defining himself as the One. But if the Other is not to regain the status of being the One, he must be submissive enough to accept this alien point of view” (17). Any arguments that state that man and woman are of equal standing are fallacious because our Otherness is so ingrained in societal customs, even love in all its presumed purity. Our Otherness has been repeatedly solidified through history, religion, literature, and social practices. Men are responsible for the narrative of women inheriting the negative and inferior characteristics of humans, so men were consolidated as the One, the ideal, the essential. God created Adam in the reflection of himself, and then he manifested Eve as a reflection of Adam, right? The Otherness has also been justified through biological, economical, and psychological institutions. Beauvoir is pessimistic that we can escape Otherness, and so is Crass. Unless we start anew, in the absence of any conventions or positions in love, Crass argues that love is just another way to protect the system that oppresses them.
Dry Weather (Track #9)
You want woman ’cause she’s children for your system
Well, people wither in that living death
You hide behind your prejudice, afraid of my wisdom
Afraid I might question your unquestioned worthIs there anyone prepared to tell me why?
Tell me why I’m being sucked dry?
Oh yes! I know the lines you drawn for protection
The number given for a name is simply for detection
I know I’m only paper in a file
But couldn’t you treat me as a human for a while?You say you give me freedom, but you hang on to the key
Well don’t you think, perhaps, the decision’s up to me?You don’t want a person, you just want a woman
You hide behind logic, secure with your facts
You’ve a history of time to back up your claims
Protecting the future by filling up the cracks
That might expose the real nature of your games
“In truth, women have never set up female values in opposition to male values; it is man who, desirous of maintaining masculine prerogatives, has invented that divergence. Men have presumed to create a feminine domain- the kingdom of life, of immanence- only in order to lock up women therein… What they demand today is to be recognized as existent by the same right as men and not to subordinate existence to life, the human being to its animality” (Beauvoir 90).
Libertine, like Beauvoir, identifies the way men justify their dominance through biological reasoning and associating their bodies with animalistic characteristic, such as reproductivity, maternity, and domestic work. Women are more closely chained to their bodies than men, who can overcome their bodies to engender qualities past animality, such as governing, generating economy, and building civilization. These qualities are treated less like animal instincts so they generate power and can construct a whole history that back up their claims of superiority. Men created an intricate logic that assigned gender values on human anatomy. Hence, they hold on to the key that defines womanhood and rewards her for participating in their gender roles. Beauvoir and Libertine both believe that even if women fight back, men will be driven by their esteemed dominance to make the conditions for liberation harder to attain.
Our Wedding (Track #10)
The final track on Penis Envy has a funny backstory. What is seemingly a sweet-sounding song is a satire of popular love songs that tend to be played at weddings. Crass submitted this song to a magazine named “Loving” under the name “Creative Recording And Sound Services” (aka C.R.A.S.S.). The magazine bought and distributed the single before they realized Crass’s identity. If you pay attention to the lyrics, it’s even funnier.
And that is why Penis Envy is my favorite punk album. It’s not preachy, it’s not trying to impress, it just is. And it tells you how it is. Crass actively lived their ideals, communicating their anarchist beliefs whilst executing them through their use of irony, obscenity, and their real-life commitment to an anarchist collective. Crass renounces the normalized and dogmatic assertions of society and makes you question the authority of the systems that uphold them. It is anarchist poetry. It is an album that ‘does’ its philosophy.
Sources:
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex, Translated and Edited by H.M. Parshley. 1953.
Crass, Penis Envy (1981).
Popkin. “Watch This Interview about the Art of the Anarchist Punk Band, Crass.” Boing Boing, 8 Aug. 2021, boingboing.net/2021/08/08/watch-this-interview-about-the-art-of-the-anarchist-punk-band-crass.html.
Seanworrall. “Organ Thing: Vital Anarcho-Punk Collective Crass Give Away Free Download of ‘Best before 1984’ for 24 Hours…” THE ORGAN, 1 Apr. 2019, organthing.com/2019/04/01/organ-thing-vital-anarcho-punk-collective-crass-give-away-free-download-of-best-before-1984-for-24-hours/.
