Steampunk Girl

I'll preface this with my usual disclaimer. I invented Steampunk in my 1999 film script, Thunder Child. I will concede that William Gibson gets the credit because of his 1990 novel The Difference Engine. Yes, the same William Gibson who invented Cyberpunk, hence the "punk" in the steam. After all, he is a famous writer who was actually doing the work while I was just dreaming.  

Back in 1999, I outlined my script Thunder Child to someone in the pub and he told me that I was writing something called Steampunk, so I rushed home to investigate but there were very few pages on the subject on the internet at the time.  I did not need them really, for I had been instinctively attuned to the genre since I was ten years old, through Jules Verne and the Wild Wild West television show

Over the past ten years, I have watched the genre grow like a behemoth. For me its like knowing Bill Gates while he lived in the basement and not having the money to invest in his new company; then you watch it grow and everyone jumping on the bandwagon. You stand in the darkness as others profit in the spotlight and you become just another "steampunk" in the crowd. I am however resolved that when they pass, I shall remain.

You see, there is this false dichotomy that I called "the pop-cultural spectrum" back in the 1980's when I recognised it. Whether you buy into the mainstream, the cool alternative, or some soon-to-be-hip niche you are still buying into the same system of consumerism. Sociologists call this cultural consumption.

I'm all for consumption. I am a Romantic and history shows that Romantics love their stuff. Where I differ is that things exists for us to use, we do not exist for the things. The things we use to decorate our style of life should reflect our souls, our values, our beliefs. Only then do they become an extension of us. I'm not one for consumption for the sake of impressing the crowd or clique, only for myself.

One phrase I hate hearing is, "Oh, I use to be a Goth." I think to myself, "So you were a poseur then?" The poseur can wear the clothes, buy the stuff, talk the talk, listen to the music, and go to the clubs. A poseur can be the picture perfect model. But if that hot goth chick goes home and throws on her trainers and jeans, then I have to wonder which is the real girl. Is Goth just for dress-up until you grow out of it? Sorry kid, statistically speaking, everyone sells out and becomes a mundy.

Historically and culturally, Goth, like Steampunk, is an idiomatic subset of Romanticism, like Western (believe it or not). Some have gone so far to criticise Steampunk style as "goth (or industrial) in brown".

My take on Steampunk is same as my take on Goth. I do not approach the idiom from the position of consuming the fashion or music. I approach both from an historical, literary, cultural, and yes, philosophical position as parts of the Romantic.

Where I believe Steampunk is important is as an ideology – the Romantic ideology. But alas the consumers don't give a shit about the philosophy or the ideology. That's just rain their parade. They want to have fun, enjoy the new party theme and then move on to either the next one or grow-up and abandon it all together.

Forgive me if I sound cynical, but I have witnessed this over and over and over again for decades without any real change in consciousness. Image how I feel as a Romantic with people flirting with symbols and styles of my religion because its cool, people profiting from it, and then consumers throwing it aside because they could care less about meaning. Then they continue with their lives whining about how their lives have no meaning. Well my dear, that because you sucked it right out.

Among the ancient Celts there was a special caste called the bards. Part of their duties was to give meaning to the customs and rituals of the people through stories, songs, and histories. I speak of this very rarely but I will write it here. I am of the highest rank of bard through the authority of a bishop in the Celtic Christian Church with twelve lines of apostolic succession. That makes me legit. As such I have always seen as my role to bring meaning to people's lives by showing them the relevance of those things that they take for granted. This is my job and it is what I was born to do.

So what is the meaning of Steampunk? Romanticism is part of human nature, but more importantly it is part of Western Civilisation. Many feel that that civilisation is crumbling. So we look back to the glory days of the Romantic...the Victorian Era. We mimic it in our dress and our style either as Victorian Goths or Steampunks. But dressing like a tiger does not make you a tiger. What we are really after is a change of consciousness – a return to the worldview that made us great. But the Victorian Era was not perfect. So enter Steampunk.

The Victorian Romantics loved the Middle-Ages and in many ways Victorian society was a pastiche of how the Victorians either perceived or wanted the Medieval Period to be like. Likewise Steampunk is our pastiche of Victoriana.

William Gibson's book, The Difference Engine, is what is known as Dystopian Steampunk. The world he painted was a hell of steam and machines in a polluted London. This is not the world of modern Steampunks. Theirs is one of high adventure with brass machines and liberated women. My vision is one of inclusion, and that brings me to the real topic of this article.

Life for the middle-class Victorians was not the ideal we often depict. The most rampant disease of the age was syphilis. The philandering husband brought it home to his wife and she infected her children. This means she was scarred for life, on her face, with the sins of her husband. The famous Mrs Beaton, who wrote the definitive guide for the Victorian housewife, had syphilis.

Now it takes two to tango. This philandering husband was with his mistress or with one of the many London whores. It has been estimated that in London there was one prostitute for every twenty-five men. The worst thing that could happen to a woman was pregnancy out of wedlock. She might be cast-out from the family home disowned and living on the streets. Many such women threw themselves into the Thames.

I've had people challenge my glorification of the Victorians with facts such as these and my reply is always to state the theme of the age – Improvement. Victorians tackled such issues head-on. They wanted a better world and they were not afraid to work for it. The state of life from the start Victoria's reign when compared to the end is a stark contrast. The Victorian (see here Romantic) method worked. The problem is that we, as a civilisation, lost faith and abandoned it. Steampunk asks us what our world would be like if our ancestors had not stopped the Romantic Revolution.

The vision of the Classical Liberals of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century was inclusion. The white, middle-class, Protestant male was king and they wanted to teach the values that made him king to others and bring them into the Gentleman's club of power. This was viewed by later critics as an attempt to deny and destroy the inherent values and beliefs of others.

We see the same process at work today. People of the hippie persuasion are charmed by the quaint African villages and seek to preserve that native way of life by forcing them to die early from smoke inhalation from dung fuelled fires because oil and non-solar/wind generated electricity is bad. All that is really being achieved is keeping these people underfoot, starving, and dependent. I'd reckon the Victorians would be ashamed. If you doubt me, I would point out all the schools built across Africa during the days of the empire all with the intent of improving their lives and their opportunities.

Part of this spirit of inclusion extended to women. Yes. The Victorian woman had it bad. So with the power of imagination we might ask what would have happened if the Romantic method continued? What would that Steampunk Girl be like?

I saw a Facebook post of a woman dressed in a Neo-Victorian style and a man posted a comment along the lines of, "Why do women get the best clothes?" Fact is that the clothes of the average Victorian woman were pretty boring and the men had the best clothes. Most of the inspiration for the modern "Steampunk" look seems to come from dancehall or saloon girls of the period. These are the so-called "loose women of questionable virtue" of the time.

Fact is that thanks to the pill, legal abortion, condoms, and yes, even state funding for unwed mothers, the post-modern woman can afford to be a sexual creature without the pitfalls that kept the Victorian woman chaste. This change is reflected in the sexy clothes of the Steampunk girls.

Another major theme in Victoriana, and therefore Steampunk fashion, is industry. The curious thing here is that today in the United States only 23% of women choose to enter the fields of engineering, invention, and computing. But what is really being said here is that women are now producers, no longer dependant upon men for their existence. She is active.

Unlike the bound Victorian woman, the post-modern woman is not restricted by the consequences of sex or the dependency of another's production. This gives the woman incredible power and freedom, and yet the other part of the equation is responsibility and consequence.

Men are programmed by evolution in general terms of masculinity to be more reason oriented and less emotional as a consequence of his natural function as producer. Likewise women are programmed for emotion as benefits their role as reproducer. Victorian men often used this emotional orientation as an excuse to dismiss, demean, and control women for their own good. The woman's emotions were seen as a potential threat to herself and to others.

We have moved beyond that thinking, but the basic natural premise has not changed despite the change in social attitudes. Once we recognise this major difference in masculine and feminine psychology we can more easily identify the feminized male, the masculine woman, but more importantly the so-called feral female.

The idea of the feral female is the woman whose natural emotional drives are not restrained, disciplined, or controlled by her or others. Statistically women are more likely to end a relationship then men and the reason is not being fulfilled emotionally by the relationship. Men and women are equally inclined to cheat, but the woman tends to form an emotional bond either, before or after sex, with her lover. This puts her in an emotional quandary which eventually leads to the end of the relationship, particularly if her partner becomes desperate and emotionally needy in his attempts to keep her.

In the old days when a woman was dependent on a man's production he limited how she spent his earnings. Today, the self-producing woman spends for herself. In the UK women spend £21 billion on clothes alone, twice what men spend, and most of this is on credit. These weapons of massive consumption wear only 10% of their wardrobe 90% of the time leaving most of the purchases untouched. The result of this spending is that women aged 25-34 in the UK who declared bankruptcy hit sixty per day.

Women have been liberated sexually and productively and many women have used that freedom to truly flourish and be generally happy. However the feral female nature must be recognised and held in check in the same way that a man must restrain his nature to spread his seed. If it is not, then emotional unfulfilment and bankruptcy seems to be the inevitable outcome for the post-modern woman. It's Bridget Jones without the happy ending.

Many Victorian men chose to be bachelors in the Professor Henry Higgins mode. Part of his duties as a man was to manage his woman and many men refused that responsibility by remaining single. He values his freedom too much to be bothered with women.

Things have not changed. When a woman's hormones go bonkers and she's flooded with emotions the man has to deal with that constantly shifting tide of happiness and hopelessness. He's expected to comfort, console, and support, so he's expected to be a woman. Modern men are also expected to be magnificent lovers indulging her sexual desires and if he doesn't then she might feel "emotionally unsatisfied" and abandon him for stiffer pastures. Many men have chosen that it is better to be a man alone, free, and true than be either subject to a woman's whims or the manger of her emotional states.

If Victorian society was masculine and these masculine qualities are those celebrated and glorified in Steampunk, then where do we living in the feminized post-modern fit in? And who is this Steampunk girl? She's not the Victorian woman sexually, morally, and physically bound. She wears her corset when she chooses and she wears it outside her clothes. So what makes her different from any other post-modern woman? Her taste in clothes?

Keeping with the theme of inclusion, what kept the Victorian gentleman in-line was social convention, reputation, and necessity, true, but overall it was his will over his desires. He was expected to master his emotional urges. Likewise, the women who seek to be in the Gentleman's Club must learn to govern themselves and be judged for their decisions, because the rules cannot be changed to suit their natures. "I felt like it" is no excuse. Women who do not want to join the ranks of producers must submit to those who do or be abandoned.

Sounds like I want to turn women into men. Well, the masculine world is that of production and therefore any woman who wants to be part of that world must follow its rules. Likewise any man who chooses to be a part of the woman's world of reproduction must follow those rules. That's reproduction in the figurative sense as child-rearing, of course.

We can imagine the Goth girl lying languid across a chaise lounge, though not the Steampunk girl. She's ready for action and high-adventure. There are so many herotypes that I can consider that encapsulate the action woman, but none are quite Steampunk. They do not have the sensibilities of what a neo-Victorian woman would be like. There is one though.

I played my first game of Tomb Raider a few years ago and I am embarrassed to say that I realised what all of the fuss was about. Lara Croft is of noble birth, wealthy, intelligent, and witty. She is beautiful and sexy without trying. She is charming and handles adversity with gallantry. Lady Croft embodies all seven of the Romantic virtues, and even some of the masculine ones. All she was missing was some neo-Victorian clothes.

Women go ga-ga over Romantic heroes, be they light or dark. Is it surprising that men went crazy over Lara Croft. The thing about women like her though is that they are a challenge to men. A woman cannot a love a man that she does not respect and she cannot respect a man that she sees as her inferior. So any man who can win a Lara Croft must be a remarkable man indeed.

Steampunk offers us an interesting opportunity. Those of us with a Romantic Victorian disposition can imagine what the world would have been like if the Romantic vision did not die in the fields of France, or the falling of the stock market, or under the boot-heel of socialism. What kind of world would we have if America was still a republic and Britain an empire? 

We can only guess the answer, but I want to see that world for real. America can be a republic again, but I think the empire is pretty much a done deal. No, what I really want to see is that world of industrious and enterprising ladies and gentlemen boldly moving into the future building, creating, and devising new places and new opportunities for everyone. That is the world I want to see and all wrapped-up in a Victorian aesthetic.

Instead we humans are seen as the virus of planet earth draining its resources and killing the world. People need to be held back, controlled, labelled, and kept happy on bread, circuses, and lies. The individual must be protected from himself and others from him and all for the "greater good" as cooked-up in some bureaucrat's office and then fed through the ad-men to convince the mob that it is moral. Then we all can vote for whichever side of the same evil coin we choose and thus convince ourselves that everything is okay. Our ancestors would be appalled by our inaction.

So for all those playing dress-up. Have fun. As for me, I have a world to win. I believe in Steampunk. That spectacular merging of modern technology, Romantic zeitgeist, and the Neo-Victorian aesthetic I live everyday of my life when I put on my hat and frock coat. I'm a 24/7 guy because it's me, and there is no other person to be. There are no jeans, t-shirts, or trainers, just trousers, braces and slippers. That is why I do what I do, because I cannot be anything else. So stop pretending and join the true revolution. Ladies welcome.

Oh, and for all those creators of Steampunk clothes, jewellery, machines, books, films, art, music, and design. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication. I am in awe of your talent, passion, creativity, and ingenuity. Keep up the fantastic work.