As promised, I'll be publishing some thoughts from other women in competitive air guitar over the next little while. Some of these women are choosing to be anonymous, while others are using their names. Please know that this is not intended to beat anyone over the head with these stories - rather, the purpose of the series is to flesh out the experiences that we have had so as to give a fuller picture, and to show how pervasive and widespread these similar experiences are.
Today's guest post comes to you from Glory Wholesome.
I’ve been competing in air guitar competitions since 2011 and I have loved every minute of it. However, I’ve noticed from the USAG and local competitions, judges tend to zero in on the women competing. Judges see my sex appeal as my performance.
My first year competing I came out in a prom dress and ripped it off on stage as a way of making my transformation for my set. My name gave me that inspiration: “Glory Wholesome.” The gimmick was to come out as a “wholesome” prom queen and then transform into pure rock n roll - sexy, energetic, carefree, and maybe slightly inebriated (or completely hammered, same thing). It sounded pretty cool in my mind, as I had watched a few videos and had seen previous competitors doing the same sort of thing. After I did my performance, I got my scores. I don’t even remember the actual scores and they were probably pretty low anyway because it was my first year, and I am totally fine with that. I’m not writing this about how I was scored. I do remember the judge’s critiques; all of them, calling me out on my “intro” stating air guitar wasn’t a strip club and telling me I was more stripper than air guitarist. These comments have sat with me and have influenced me since that day. So every year since 2011, I have put thought into my costumes. How can I draw attention away from “being a stripper” but still have character integrity? My character is supposed to be sexy, dirty, vulgar, whatever. She is not meant to be a stripper, if that were so, I would have made it so. There’s a huge difference, plus I’m not seeing any money coming on stage when I perform. So the last three years of competing, I’ve just covered up, yet it still gets mentioned. At a local, non-USAG sponsored Air Guitar competition I actually got negative scores for just being a girl with red hair and I was dressed in my normal clothes. My entire performance was ignored based on how I looked to one of the judges, so it’s not just USAG, but air guitar competitions as a whole, and really just goes back to the whole "women are secondary to men" mentality but that’s a whole other issue to be had. 
As I said before, though, I meant for my character to be sexy and I could change my character to something funny or meta or whatever but I love my character and I don’t want to change for anyone. I shouldn’t, nor anyone else with sex appeal, have to walk the fine line that is set out for women in air guitar. Men competitors use sex, too. Pick five random air guitarists and you will see what I mean. It’s not just us girls. And that’s the rub, I guess. Using sex in a performance should be treated equally between all of us men and women alike. My sexuality should not get in the way of my performance; if anything it should enhance it and give it life, just as it does for anyone else that has been praised for their sexuality during their own set. I understand the judges say what they say to be funny and get a rise out of people, and they should continue to get laughs from the crowd and the competitors but I think there should be a way to achieve this without objectifying participants that makes them feel bad.
This is just my experience with sexism within the competition aspect. And just so I am clear, I harbor no ill will towards anyone in the community and that includes all past judges. I feel I have been scored fairly for every USAG competition I have been a part of. I don’t think that is so much the issue for me, though. The issue really is being critiqued fairly or equally. Instead of saying “6.0 for side boob but 5.3 for performance,” the judges need to be more constructive and say “Nice work utilizing the stage, but maybe next time you could focus on your technicality.” I had a friend who has gone to both Aireokes (non competition air guitar) and competitions tell me that he noticed a trend with the competitions and the judges not giving much feedback to the women who compete but rather commentary on their physical appearances. I’m not saying we need to change everything we do, but maybe have a line or some sort of standard. We are all supposed to be friends here. I wouldn’t want to make any of my friends feel shitty because of joke I had made about their appearance, even if it was meant in good fun. Let’s all just be cool, guys. Be excellent to each other, that sort of thing.
photos:
#1 by Pat Paulsen
#2 by Glory Wholesome