Festival Review: Babefest Isn’t A Music Festival- It Is A Call To Act
By the end of Babefest, I cried. It was the first festival experience, especially based on a charity, where everyone, from artist to audience, felt equal. Moreover, its poignancy to these Kavanaugh times went beyond music. Yet, this was to be expected because, technically, the crowd were the ones in need of charity: women.
When you think of being in need of charity, you might think destitution and desolation. While everyone was dressed in their cutest outfits, splurging on beer and pierogis from Warsaw NYC, charity took two forms: the need to support Emily’s List and the need to support each other as women. The night was, specifically, dedicated to Emily’s List: a nonprofit aimed at electing a diversity of pro-choice democratic women into office. (Yas Kween!) Introducing the acts were members of Emily’s List, like Lucinda Guinn, who brought facts, tales, and hearts to womanhood, as an energy, and explained not only why women need to come into power but why we, the audience, can be those women.
In being led by women for women, Babefest was an event that expanded a knowledge you already had; it can be really devastating to be a woman. From Torres to Amy Leon, every artist took a moment or moments to show the beauty and bravery it takes to be female. Yes, everyone gave phenomenal performances; with Resistance Revival Chorus going into the crowd, the balcony, and my life to transform songs into the spiritual hymns every woman should memorize when feeling put down. Yet, in being such an interpersonal ambiance, we were all women with sons, brothers, fathers, and uncles, trying to figure out how we raise men with our hearts, but are still struggling in a world, controlled by them, that forgets it can be crushed.
Spiritually strong men support the societal strengthening of women, and every artist made it clear that Babefest that Emily’s List was not about bashing guys. Instead, it was was created by Ellen R. Malcolm in 1985 to assure women are no longer politically/ systemically bashed. (Look up Anita Hill!) Yet, if we want our government to understand us more than we have to be more involved in it like, becoming a politician. Thus, as I watched women introduce their selves to each other or go off to the Emily’s List booth and secretly contemplate whether they could have a political run, I kept on thinking, “I needed this. I needed to dream that I could.” Being a woman in a man’s world, at times, it is hard to even dream of dreaming. We are still pioneering into fields that do not want or respect us, and being the first of anything takes a lot of courage. Hence, between seeing DiFranco sing with her daughter or witnessing recently elected Tish James sing Aretha Frankiln, Babefest and Emily’s List empowered men and women to be excited for a female future.
As the Resistance Revival Chorus backed Ani DiFranco, who gave such a rocker performance a feminist manifesto should be written about it, I saw men dancing to her because she spoke to their humanity beyond gender. She culminated that, though most of us came to see Babefest’s awesome lineup, we were walking away feeling honored to have donated to Emily’s List. Babefest/ Emily’s List empowered women to know they are good enough to both nurture this world, but guide it into a brighter future. Moreover, it empowered men to have faith, not fear, that such guidance would include love and compassion for ALL. Unfortunately, there are men who fear “the rise of woman,” but you cannot fear revenge and say you have done nothing wrong; your very fear is an omission. Happily, members of Emily’s List concluded that women will bring empathy to politics, but not because of their “biology;” it is because of our history.
When you are apart of a community where in absolutely no era you could say, “Oh wow! We were so powerful, equal, loved, and free back then!” you have to have compassion; it is how your heart heals itself. So for those that think women in power will attack men, Babefest and Emily’s List make it clear; our rise does not bring revenge, it brings a spiritual renaissance and needed reformation. Through atmosphere, artistry, and adages of real, everyday women, Babefest showed men that the material progression of women will be the spiritual progression of men. Why? Because when you make policies that physically/ materially destroy someone, unbeknownst to you, your spirit is also destroyed. It is time for more spiritual men and more powerful women. For More Information On And To Donate ToEmily’s List Click Here. And Babefest Click Here.
