Love is a feminist

I really like Courtney Love. This collection on Jezebel of some of her most entertaining quotes from the VH1 special on her life,  Behind the Music: Courtney Love, although wonderful don’t really do her justice. She is so much more than the spectacle she is made out to be. (Although, I can forgive you for having trouble seeing that at times). Everything that Love is vilified for other rock stars, male rock stars specifically, are celebrated for – the ego, the addictions, the aggression, the instability, the competitiveness, the mess.

Also, Courtney Love is a feminist. She owns the word, she recognises the systematic oppression of women, she stands up for other women (and yes, has had the odd moment of fallibility too), and she lives a kind of raw honesty that is profoundly feminist. Every time a woman takes the kind of ugly misogynist heat that Love does, that woman makes it a little easier on the rest of us, by drawing that misogyny out into the bright light of the public sphere and by proving that you can survive it.