Can't Stop the Grrrls
Confronting Sexist Labels in Music from Ariana Grande to Yoko Ono
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- $31.99
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- $31.99
Publisher Description
"This is a convincing call to action." Publishers Weekly
Words and labels can hurt us all. And for many female musicians, the wounds are everywhere.
From stars like Britney Spears and Mariah Carey to classic icons like Yoko Ono, female musicians have long been the target of double standards and toxic labels in the media and pop culture: liar, crazy, snake, diva, slut, b*tch.
These words hurt—the popular expression “sticks and stones” is wildly wrong. Lily Hirsch confronts the full range of this sexist labeling as well as the repercussions, concentrating on the experiences of Yoko Ono, Courtney Love, Britney Spears, FKA twigs, Taylor Swift, Kesha, Mariah Carey, and Ariana Grande, among many others. While men can make outrageous backstage demands, women like Carey are punished as “divas.” A sign of supposed genius for men, “crazy” is a word of condemnation for many women—with legal ramifications in Spears’ case.
Hirsch dives into the world of these women, looking at their personal lives, relationships and breakups, music, media coverage, public reception, as well as the origins of these toxic labels and how they have caused serious damage. Can't Stop the Grrrls reveals the inner workings of misogyny and invites us to think about these remarkable women on their own terms—showing us how women have fought back too, sometimes reclaiming these words and their own stories through music.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this impassioned study, musicologist Hirsch (Weird Al: Seriously) calls out the music industry's long history of sexism, racism, and toxic double standards. The author laments the media's mistreatment of female artists, as when journalists Dan Carlinsky and Edwin Goodgold wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 1972 that Yoko Ono used her "hypnotic power apparently acquired in the Orient" to break up the Beatles, and, more recently, Janet Jackson was the subject of misogynistic coverage after her wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Britney Spears, Hirsch writes, was called "crazy," an appraisal that was later used in a 2008 court case that would lead to her conservatorship, which ended in November 2021. But the book ends on a hopeful note: Hirsch proposes that a "real revolution" can occur with the amplification of women's collective testimonies, because "there is strength in numbers—the stories of so many women—when they repeat in basic contour and language." Hirsch's arguments are revelatory, and she approaches her subjects with respect: "What is the right way to confront and challenge abuse when it involves someone else's trauma?" This is a convincing call to action.