Neko Case Hates Those Bullshit Little Fights About What Feminism "Is"

A few years ago, Neko Case’s parents and grandmother died, and her grief turned into depression. As she explained to The Guardian:

“There’s no grand excellence to it. In my experience it was just almost the gulaggy boringness of it that’ll kill you. You’re just in this murk. And you’re with other humans, but you lose all your human skills and it’s just like you’re in this plastic bag and you can’t quite connect with people. You lose your ability to transmit electricity or something, and to receive it.”

Now that she’s gotten professional help and recovered, or at least is in the process, her eighth studio album is filled with reflections back on the period that “blindsided” her. A few of the tracks have gender-bending conceits, which she acknowledges has been an issue on her mind:

“I have to say to myself think about how quickly things have changed for women since I was a little girl – it’s like we went from using a rock to smash some shit to being on the moon. And I want to tell younger women that.

Tell them that our momentum is huge. Keep it going. Don’t stop here and fight about why you’re calling yourself a feminist or not. Don’t get into these bitchy little fights about who does what, where. Because the women who marched and fought so we could vote, they didn’t do it so we could sit around bickering about what we called ourselves. Move. Forward. Move forward. Decide you’re equal. Don’t take anything less. And don’t stop.”