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This woman's work : essays on music Cover Image Book Book

This woman's work : essays on music / edited by Sinéad Gleeson and Kim Gordon.

Gleeson, Sinéad, (editor.). Gordon, Kim, (editor.).

Summary:

"THIS WOMAN'S WORK is a collection of essays by 18 female writers, writing about exclusively female experiences in music, co-edited by Sonic Youth co-founder Kim Gordon and Irish author Sinead Gleeson. This book celebrates the instrument makers, the experimentalists, the harmonizers, the avant-garde, the genre-breakers, the pop queens, and all those on the margins who expose the lack of intersectionality in this industry. For a long time, the narrative of music has been male-centered and hyper-masculine. The purpose of the women within it was to orbit these men: swooning to Elvis, screaming en-masse at Beatles gigs, or trying to get backstage to sleep with the rock bad boys. When women gained visibility in the music of the 1960s, they were-again-allocated specific tropes: backing singer, lone woman in the band, Motown trios singing innocuous love songs. In the 1970s, at the time Kate Bush became the first woman (at just 17) to have a number one with song she'd written herself, the women of punk began to make their voices heard. But many didn't like these acts of assertion; the femaleness, the raging against gender stereotypes, the Amazonian loudness of it all. Joan Jett recalls being knocked over on stage by flying bottles; The Slits were chased and threatened after gigs and their singer Ari Up was stabbed twice. Even as late as the 1980s, as hip hop gained prominence, it made room for only a handful of women, while trading in misogynist rhymes, where women could only be hoes, bitches or gold diggers. How were young female rappers of color to participate when they didn't see themselves represented in that culture? Trapped within an entertainment industry relentlessly catering to men, these rappers, and many other budding female musicians across a variety of genres in modern music, were often othered and exoticized-until the moment when they dared to own it. To speak up. To shout louder. Digging into the depths of an industry hard-coded for sexism, THIS WOMAN'S WORK is an ode to the thousands of women in music whose stories we don't know. Pioneers whose achievements are undervalued, often by virtue of their gender, or because someone else (many times, a man) took credit for it. Featuring brand new essays from notable feminist writers like Ottessa Moshfegh, Juliana Huxtable, Maggie Nelson, Rachel Kushner, Leslie Jamison, and more, THIS WOMAN'S WORK reminds us to pay our respects to the women who shattered ceilings and kicked in doors, vastly expanding the spectrum of women's influence in the world of modern music"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780306829000 (hardcover)
  • Physical Description: 257 pages ; 24 cm
  • Edition: First hardcover edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Hachette Books, 2022.

Search for related items by subject

Subject: Misogyny.
Music.
Women musicians.
Genre: Essays.

Available copies

  • 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Cookstown Branch 780.82 Thi 31681010275154 NONFIC Available -
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Kim Gordon is a visual artist, writer, actor and a founding member of the post punk experimental rock band Sonic Youth. Founded in the early 1980s, Sonic Youth was one of the most iconic and influential alternative rock groups. In 2012, Gordon formed Body/Head with Bill Nace, releasing their debut album, Coming Apart, in 2013. Body/Head released their second studio album, The Switch, in 2018. She released her first solo album, No Home Record, in 2019. As a visual artist, Gordon has shown work the world over including the solo exhibition “She Bites Her Tender Mind” at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) in Dublin and “Lo-Fi Glamour” at Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. She is author of the bestselling memoir, Girl in a Band, and 2020’s No Icon.

Sinéad Gleeson is a former music journalist and now author. Her debut essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at 2019 Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Michel Déon Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her short stories have featured in various anthologies, including Being Various: New Irish Short Stories and Repeal the 8th. She has edited several award-winning anthologies including The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland, and The Art of Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories. She is currently working on a novel.

Kim Gordon is a visual artist, writer, actor and a founding member of the post punk experimental rock band Sonic Youth. Founded in the early 1980s, Sonic Youth was one of the most iconic and influential alternative rock groups. In 2012, Gordon formed Body/Head with Bill Nace, releasing their debut album, Coming Apart, in 2013. Body/Head released their second studio album, The Switch, in 2018. She released her first solo album, No Home Record, in 2019. As a visual artist, Gordon has shown work the world over including the solo exhibition “She Bites Her Tender Mind” at IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) in Dublin and “Lo-Fi Glamour” at Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. She is author of the bestselling memoir, Girl in a Band, and 2020’s No Icon.

Sinéad Gleeson is a former music journalist and now author. Her debut essay collection Constellations: Reflections from Life won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at 2019 Irish Book Awards and the Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Michel Déon Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her short stories have featured in various anthologies, including Being Various: New Irish Short Stories and Repeal the 8th. She has edited several award-winning anthologies including The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland, and The Art of Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories. She is currently working on a novel.

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