{"id":1266,"date":"2024-10-28T15:39:42","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T19:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/?p=1266"},"modified":"2024-10-28T15:39:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T19:39:42","slug":"a-patchwork-of-femininity-how-vespertine-empowers-women-within-domesticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/issue-5-fall-2024\/a-patchwork-of-femininity-how-vespertine-empowers-women-within-domesticity\/","title":{"rendered":"A Patchwork of Femininity: How Vespertine Empowers Women Within Domesticity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pairing musical analysis with feminist theory, Aiden Hahn examines the ways in which Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s Vespertine<\/i> subverts traditional feminist messages. Hahn investigates the concept of the domestic within Bj\u00f6rk’s world, detailing how a space traditionally limiting for women was liberating for the artist. Ultimately, Hahn identifies how Bj\u00f6rk has consciously reclaimed the domestic as a part of her identity, disabling the patriarchy from using it against her. \u2013Lilia Wong \u201825<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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A Patchwork of Femininity: How Vespertine <\/i>Empowers Women Within Domesticity<\/b><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Aiden Hahn ’27<\/strong><\/h5>\n

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Gonzague Petit Trabal, \u201cBj\u00f6rk.\u201d Flickr: Public Domain, 2 July 2015.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Bj\u00f6rk performing in the 90s goro memo, \u201cbj\u00f6rk (of the sugarcubes),\u201d 28 August 2006. Flickr: some rights reserved, creative commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere lies my passion hidden\/ there lies my love\/ I\u2019ll hide it under a blanket\/ lull it to sleep\/ I\u2019ll keep it in a hidden place\u201d\u00a0 (Bj\u00f6rk, 2001). Bj\u00f6rk is a singer and songwriter who has carved out a niche within pop music with her quirky, eclectic style that infused her Icelandic cultural heritage with 90s electronic and punk-rock influences. Her lyrics are brazenly feminist, and in most of her early songs, Bj\u00f6rk screams anthems of female rage and lust over catchy yet aggressive instrumentals. Her first three studio albums to feature this distinctive style were each commercial successes, launching Bj\u00f6rk into a six-year nonstop world tour through the mid-90s. By the end of the tour, Bj\u00f6rk found herself \u201cphysically exhausted,\u201d and her home became a source of reliable, consistent peace and artistic inspiration (Eir). For her fourth studio album, <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>(2001),\u00a0 she took an intentionally sharp stylistic turn towards soft and subtle sensuality, \u201cmeant like a new way to make a home\u201d (Eir). <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>blends the male-dominated medium of electronic music with traditionally light feminine vocals and instruments, as well as sounds from the artist\u2019s home, implying that domesticity does not have to be a powerless void restraining women, for women can embrace the conventions of domestic life to construct empowering identities and discourses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The blending of everyday domestic sounds into the electronic production of <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>challenges the early feminist belief that women have been robbed of authority and power due to a societal banishment to the home. In <\/span>Gendered Spaces<\/span><\/i>, Daphne Spain writes of the phenomenon of the domestic sphere and male-dominated industries having been intentionally kept apart. She observes that \u201cthroughout history and across cultures . . . women and men are spatially segregated in ways that reduce women\u2019s access to knowledge and thereby reinforce women\u2019s lower status relative to men\u2019s\u201d (Spain 3). In the article, \u201cNot Subordinate: Empowering Women in the Marriage-Plot,\u201d literary critic Julie Shaffer provides a reason as to why this separation of the workforce and the home has become so pronounced. She claims that the droves of men drawn to urban factory jobs during the Industrial Revolution \u201ccontributed to the home’s becoming increasingly viewed as a haven from society . . . it became increasingly difficult to see women’s realm of action as reaching from that distant hearth into society at large\u201d (Shaffer 68). Bj\u00f6rk, however, updates this old model of systemic sexism by fueling her artistic endeavors with the pride she feels in her domestic lifestyle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vespertine <\/span><\/i>takes place within the home. The album, which was initially titled <\/span>Domestika<\/span><\/i>, comes to life with the sounds of Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s home environment: snow crunching under boots, ice cracking, cards shuffling, and a hand tapping on a dining table. Bj\u00f6rk recorded and produced the entire album from her home computer, editing the domestic sounds into patterned rhythms and surrounding them with electronic synth performances and ethereal vocals on a music production software (Eir). And while Spain may have seen this as another unfortunate example of a woman trapped in a domestic realm created to keep her away from society\u2019s power, the creation process of <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i> proves otherwise. In an interview about <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i>, Bj\u00f6rk remarks that\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like paradise: domestic life. I would first have to create . . . a new way to make a home including my laptop, and including my newfound self-sufficiency, being able to work at home . . . having the whole album in my laptop gave me freedom, and also liberated me as an author and as a producer to weave together all the songs . . . the craft of that is quite feminine.\u201d (Eir)<\/span><\/p>\n

With her personal computer, Bj\u00f6rk was able to creatively control her own songs from within a construct that has traditionally represented women\u2019s lack of agency. She transformed the male-dominated field of music production into an at-home craft like those associated with women. This crossing of the gendered domain\/work boundary insinuates that domesticity is not distinctly separate from the industry. Bj\u00f6rk found in the domestic sphere a freedom to explore a practice that has been historically reserved for men, and instead of venturing \u201cinto the patriarchy system\u201d (Bj\u00f6rk) of an industry music production studio, Bj\u00f6rk created her own art in her own home on her own terms, which is an entirely empowering action. On top of that, the inclusion of domestic sounds in <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>reminds listeners that domesticity is a fluid dimension, thereby encouraging women to explore anything traditionally entrusted to men\u2014whether from within the domestic sphere or an industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Vespertine <\/span><\/i>is a patchwork of female iconography. Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s soft, traditionally feminine vocals and her collaborations with a female harpist and an all-women choir throughout <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>reveal that women can find power in embodying and embracing the stereotypes created to control them. Sonically, Bj\u00f6rk composed the album with instruments like the glockenspiel, the clavichord, and the celesta which produce thin, light, angelic sounds\u2014sounds that have been traditionally associated with delicate femininity (Eir). On nearly every song on <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i>, Bj\u00f6rk is accompanied by The Greenland Choir, an all-female Inuit choral group, and Zeena Parkins, a female harpist who combines the instrument with electronic modifications. Aesthetically, Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s vocals throughout the album are overwhelmingly gentle and hushed, with songs like \u201cCocoon\u201d and \u201cUndo\u201d performed barely above a whisper. Women have been traditionally portrayed as dainty and quiet, so compared to Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s earlier albums in which she yells alongside fiery jazz compositions, <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i>\u2019s quiet voice and feminine instruments clearly present an intentional embodying of female stereotypes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pulicciano, \u201cOscar, Bjork and the Swan Dress.\u201d Flickr: some rights reserved, creative commons. 17 May 2008.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But why would a female musician attempting to empower other women lean into stereotypes that have historically been used to subjugate women? Music critics and journalists Simon Reynolds and Joy Press address this in their book, <\/span>The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock \u2018N\u2019 Roll<\/span><\/i>. They argue that in order to cultivate respect and authority, female musicians <\/span>celebrate female imagery and iconography . . . [some female musicians] shift between a series of female archetypes in a strategy of investment and divestment: using clich\u00e9s without being reduced to them . . . women turn stereotypes against the society that created them. (Press 233-234)\u00a0<\/span>Stereotypes are developed so that certain demographics are generalized in the eyes of the public, effectively robbing people in those populations of individuality and autonomy. This is how groups of people are dehumanized and discriminated against. However, when people\u2013in this case, women\u2013consciously infuse their identities with their stereotypical conventions, a contradiction forms that breaks the system: how can a woman be stripped of her identity through stereotypes if her identity is informed by the power she feels when embracing those stereotypes? In other words, relishing in the ownership of stereotypes can be an empowering act that robs conventions of their subjugating power. Reynolds and Press argue that the practice of female musicians embodying historically feminine traditions \u201cbecomes a way of provoking and confounding the male gaze . . . these artists refuse to be tied down to any one identity\u201d (289). Therefore, Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s proud masquerade of femininity in <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>challenges the idea that female stereotypes are a stifling sentence to life in the shadows of men, for she proves that an empowering dissection of patriarchal thought systems can come from an intertwining of domestic, feminine conventions and personal identity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Through <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i>\u2019s lyrics, Bj\u00f6rk confesses the empowering love she has found in her domestic relationship, while simultaneously acknowledging the dark underbelly of domesticity, proving that nuanced female-led discourses can emerge from the domestic sphere. In the eighth song on <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i>, \u201cAn Echo a Stain,\u201d Bj\u00f6rk laments over an increasingly disturbing, pulsating beat, \u201cone of these days, soon, very soon, love you \u2018til then\/ Don\u2019t say no to me\/ You can\u2019t say no to me\/ I won\u2019t see you denied\/ I\u2019m sorry you saw that\/ I\u2019m sorry he did it.\u201d (Bj\u00f6rk, 2001). These lyrics were interpolated from the play <\/span>Crave, <\/span><\/i>written by Sarah Kane, which takes a grim, experimental look at domestic abuse, specifically that of her father toward her mother (Pytlik 172). \u201cAn Echo a Stain\u201d appears to be out of place in <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i>. The entire album up until this song details the infatuation, sensuality and comfort that Bj\u00f6rk experiences because of her partner, and suddenly\u2013over halfway through the album\u2013a darkness bubbles to the surface. Bj\u00f6rk interrupts her own outpouring of love with these stark words in order to bring sharp awareness to the ability of any relationship to stumble into violence and volatile emotions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Bj\u00f6rk DJ\u2019ing alongside her then husband Matthew Barney Darwin Bell, \u201cBjork and Mathew Barney at the stud,\u201d 21 June 2006. Flickr: some rights reserved, creative commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But just as abruptly as it emerges, the unease in <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>dissipates, and the songs succeeding \u201cAn Echo a Stain\u201d return to peaceful passion. The final song of the album, \u201cUnison,\u201d presents one of the most vulnerable accounts of how Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s embracing of domestic life has changed her for the better. She admits, \u201cborn stubborn, me, will always be . . . have grown my own private branch of this tree. You, gardener . . . domestically, I can obey all of your rules and still be.\u201d Domestic life has not made Bj\u00f6rk sacrifice her identity, instead, it has introduced a new aspect to it\u2013one that empowers her and encourages her individuality. Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s pairing of songs like \u201cUnison\u201d\u2013which represents all the warmth and strength of her relationship\u2013with \u201cAn Echo a Stain\u201d reveals the duality of domesticity. The \u201cbranch\u201d and the \u201ctree\u201d can be ruled by the \u201cgardener,\u201d or they can both thrive together and sustain each other. It all comes down to control of power in a relationship and if it\u2019s entrusted to both partners equally. Bj\u00f6rk wants her listeners to recognize this dynamic; to discuss it; to confront it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her article \u201cNot Subordinate: Empowering Women in the Marriage-Plot,\u201d Julie Shaffer argues that one <\/span>should view the genre [of marriage and domesticity] as a site for some women novelists to participate in constructing and disseminating an ideology that granted women greater autonomy and respectability than that which viewed them as subordinate and inferior creatures (Shaffer 52). <\/span>An unavoidable reality of patriarchal society is that women are not granted the same inherent respect and authority that men are born into. As Daphne Spain documented, women have been systematically designated to the home, so, society has historically dictated that women should only possess domestic, mother\/wife knowledge (Spain). However, women have and will continue to exploit this niche source of intrinsic respect to speak and be heard. Since women are given authority in conversations about domesticity, they will write stories and craft albums about domestic life while subtextually engaging in deeper arguments, which will more likely garner widespread recognition and respect in patriarchal cultures (Shaffer).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Gonzague Petit Trabal, \u201cBj\u00f6rk, Ph. Anton Corbijn, 1990\u2019s,\u201d 29 May 2015. Flicker: public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s case, the troubling side of domesticity brought up in \u201cAn Echo A Stain\u201d is intentionally shrouded with songs detailing domestic feminine joy, so that a wider audience will actually listen and take this discussion seriously. To Shaffer\u2019s point, women have initiated topical discourses through the medium of domestic art so that the men who are most at risk of perpetuating cycles of power imbalance are more inclined not only to listen and learn but also treat the conversation and the women behind it with respect. <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i> references the issue of domestic violence which haunts relationships and home environments across generations. Conversations initiated by empowered female voices like Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s could hopefully lead to men recognizing the patterns which can lead to the cycle being broken. Therefore, female artists can effectively use the setting of the domestic realm as a tool to discuss and address systemic issues in patriarchal society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Daphne Spain echoed the ideas of early waves of feminism when she argued that the stratification of men to the workforce and women to the home has prevented women from accessing the same social power as men, forcing women into a lower social status. While institutionalized sexism is a brutal reality that many women recognize and confront throughout their lives, this argument suggests that the domestic sphere and the industrial sphere exist in a concrete binary division with all of the power in society held in the latter sector; however, <\/span>Vespertine <\/span><\/i>demonstrates that this is not the case. Bj\u00f6rk is just one of the many female musicians who steep their artistic personas in femininity and domesticity to prove that domestic life is not an isolated prison but a fluid space for personal peace and creativity as well as exploration into male-dominated industries. Women can advocate for themselves in culturally significant discourses and build unique identities that actively dismantle patriarchal constrictions\u2013all from within the blurred borders of the domestic sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Minny Robot, \u201cBjork,\u201d 26 July 2002. Flickr: some rights reserved, creative commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If society continues to treat domesticity as an isolation chamber limiting women from the power men can achieve, crucial conversations and discourses on systematic patriarchal issues will not be properly confronted. For it is female artists like Bj\u00f6rk who, from within the walls of their homes, take matters into their own hands, telling stories that empower them personally, and formulating identities that challenge both patriarchal systems and dated feminist perspectives. They craft albums like <\/span>Vespertine<\/span><\/i> that employ femininity in such an identity-enmeshing way that it robs patriarchal domesticity of its power to generalize and dehumanize women. When the domestic sphere is then recognized as a space for female strength and authority, more women will realize that they have the power to share their voices and their art on their own terms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Works Cited\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Eir, Oddn\u00fd, and Bj\u00f6rk Gu\u00f0mundsd\u00f3ttir. <\/span>This is Sonic Symbolism, Episode Four, Vespertine<\/span><\/i>. September 2022. <\/span>Bjork.fr<\/span><\/i>, Sonic Symbolism. Podcast.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Press, Joy, and Simon Reynolds. <\/span>The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/span><\/i>. Harvard University Press, 1995.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pytlik, Mark. <\/span>Bj\u00f6rk: Wow and Flutter<\/span><\/i>. ECW Press, 2003. <\/span>Google Books<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shaffer, Julie. \u201cNot Subordinate: Empowering Women in the Marriage-Plot\u2014 The Novels of Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen.\u201d <\/span>Criticism<\/span><\/i>, vol. 34, no. no. 1, 1992, pp. 51-73. <\/span>JSTOR<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Spain, Daphne. <\/span>Gendered Spaces<\/span><\/i>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pairing musical analysis with feminist theory, Aiden Hahn examines the ways in which Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s Vespertine subverts traditional feminist messages. Hahn investigates the concept of the domestic within Bj\u00f6rk’s world, detailing how a space traditionally limiting for women was liberating for the artist. Ultimately, Hahn identifies how Bj\u00f6rk has consciously reclaimed the domestic as a part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3782,"featured_media":1319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-5-fall-2024"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/368\/2024\/10\/bjork5.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/smithwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}