“There lies my passion hidden- there lies my love. I’ll hide it under a blanket, lull it to sleep. I’ll keep it in a hidden place”. Björk is a singer and songwriter who carved out a niche in pop music with her quirky, eclectic style that infuses her Icelandic cultural heritage with 90s punk-rock influences. Her lyrics are brazenly feminist, and on most of her early songs, Björk screams anthems of female rage and lust over catchy yet aggressive instrumentals. Her first three studio albums to feature this style each significantly succeeded commercially, launching Björk into a six-year nonstop world tour. By the end of the tour, Björk found herself exhausted mentally and physically, and her home became a source of reliable, consistent peace and artistic inspiration (Eir). She set out to create her fourth studio album, Vespertine, in 2001 by taking a sharp stylistic turn and capturing her soft and subtle sensuality. Vespertine blends the male-dominated medium of electronic music with traditionally feminine vocals and instruments as well as sounds from the artist’s home to imply 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.
The blending of everyday domestic sounds into the electronic production of Vespertine challenges the early feminist belief that the subjugation of women to the home completely robs them of authority and power. Sociology professor and author Daphne Spain, in her book Genderd Spaces, defines the early feminist notion that the domestic sphere and male-dominated industries have been intentionally kept apart. She observes that “throughout history and across cultures… women and men are spatially segregated in ways that reduce women’s access to knowledge and thereby reinforce women’s lower status relative to men’s” (Spain 3). Additionally, in the article, “Not Subordinate: Empowering Women in the Marriage-Plot”, 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 “contributed 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.” (Shaffer 68). Björk, however, updates this old model of systematic sexism by fuelling her artistic endeavors with the pride she feels in her domestic lifestyle. Vespertine takes place within the home. The album- which was initially titled Domestika– comes to life with the sounds of Björk’s home environment: snow crunching under boots, ice cracking, cards shuffling, and a hand tapping on a dining table. Björk 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’s power, Björk herself disagrees. In an interview about Vespertine, Björk remarks that “it 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” (Eir). With her personal computer, Björk was able to creatively control her own songs from within a construct women have historically been subjugated to. She transformed the male-dominated field of music production into an at-home craft like those affiliated with women. This crossing of the gendered space boundary insinuates that domesticity is not distinctly separate from the male-dominated industries. Björk found in the domestic sphere a freedom to explore a practice that has been historically dominated by men, and instead of venturing “into the patriarchy system” (Björk) of an industry music production studio, Björk can create 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 Vespertine reminds listeners that domesticity is a fluid dimension, thereby encouraging women to explore anything men have traditionally dominated- whether from within domesticity or a male-dominated industry.
Björk’s soft, traditionally feminine vocals and her collaborations with a female harpist and an all-women choir throughout Vespertine reveal that women can find power in embodying and embracing the stereotypes created to control them. Vespertine is a patchwork of female iconography. Sonically, Björk composed the album with instruments like the glockenspiel, the clavichord and the celesta which produce thin, light, angelic sounds- sounds that have been traditionally associated with delicate femininity (Eir). On nearly every song on Vespertine, Björk 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, Björk’s vocals throughout the album are overhwhelmingly gentile and hushed with songs like “Cocoon” and “Undo” performed barely above a whisper. Women have been traditionally portrayed as dainty and quiet, so compared to Björk’s earlier albums in which she viscerally yells over firey jazz compositions, Vespertine’s quiet voice and feminine instruments clearly present an intentional embodying of female stereotypes. 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, The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock ‘N’ Roll. They argue that female musicians, in order to cultivate respect and authority, “celebrate female imagery and iconogrpahy… [some female musicians] shift between a series of female archetypes in a strategy of investment and divestment: using clichés without being reduced to them… women turn stereotypes against the society that created them.” (Reynolds, Press 233-234). Stereotypes are developed so that certain demographics are generalized in the eyes of the public, effectively robbing people in those populations of individuality. This is how groups of people are dehumanized and discriminated against. However, when people- in this case women- 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 those stereotypes are her identity? Reynolds and Press continue that the practice of female musicians embodying historically feminine traditions “becomes a way of provoking and confounding the male gaze… these artists refuse to be tied down to any one identity.” (289). Therefore, Björk’s proud masquerade of femininity in Vespertine 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.
Through Vespertine’s lyrics, Björk confesses the empowering love she has found in her domestic relationship while simultaneously acknowledging the dark underbelly of domesticity, proving that female-led nuanced discourses can emerge from the domestic sphere. In the eighth song on Vespertine,“An Echo a Stain”, Björk laments over an increasingly uncomforting, pulsating beat, “one of these days, soon, very soon, love you ‘til then… Don’t say no to me. You can’t say no to me. I won’t see you denied… I’m sorry you saw that. I’m sorry he did it.” These lyrics were interpolated from the play Crave written by Sarah Kane which takes a grim, experimental look at domestic abuse, specifically that of her father towawrds her mother (Pytlik 172). “An Echo a Stain” appears to be out of place in Vespertine. The entire album up until this song details Björk’s infatuation, sensuality and comfort that she experiences because of her partner, and suddenly- over halfway through the album- a darkness bubbles to the surface. Björk interrupts her own outpouring of love with these stark words in order to bring sharp awareness to the capability of any relationship to stumble into violence and volatile emotions. But just as abruptly as it emerges, the unease in Vespertine dissipates, and the songs succeeding “An Echo a Stain” return to peaceful passion. The final song of the album, “Unison”, presents one of the most honest accounts of how Björk’s embracing of domestic life has changed her for the better. She admits, “born 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.” Domestic life has not made Björk sacrifice her identity, instead, it has introduced a new aspect to it- one that empowers her and encourages her individuality. Björk’s pairing of songs like “Unison”- which represent all the warmth and strength of her relationship- with “An Echo a Stain” reveals the duality of domesticity and reflects that Björk is acutely aware that her affirming, wholesome relationship could devolve at any moment. Björk wants her listeners to recognize this; to discuss it; to confront it. In Shaffer’s article, an argument is made that one “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). An unavoidable reality of patriarchal society is that women are not granted the same inherent respect and authority which men are born into. As Daphne Spain documented, women have been systematically designated to the home, so historically, society has decided that women only posses domestic, mother/wife knowledge (Spain). However, women have and will continue to exploit this mine of intrinsic respect to speak and be heard. Since women are given authority in conversations about domesticity, they will write stories and sing albums about domestic life while subtextually engaging in deeper arguments which will more likely garner widespread recognition and respect (Shaffer). In Björk’s case, the troubling side of domesticity is thrown into an album revolving around a woman’s role in the domestic sphere, so that a wider audience actually listens and takes this discussion seriously. Domestic abuse haunts relationshiphs and home environements accross generations, but conversations recognizing the patterns can lead to the cycle being broken. Women have initiated these discourses through the medium of domestic art so that the men who are most at risk of perpetuating domestic voilence are more inclined to not only listen and learn, but treat the conversation and the women behind it with respect. Therefore, female artists like Björk use the setting of the domestic realm as a tool to discuss and address systemic issues in patriarchal society.
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 every woman recognizes and confronts 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, and Vespertine demonstrates that this is not the case. Björk 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- all from within the blurred borders of the domestic sphere.
In conclusion, 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 Björk 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 that challenge both patriarchal systems and dated feminist perspectives. When the domestic sphere is 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.
Annotated Bibliography
Eir, Oddný, and Björk Guðmundsdóttir. This is Sonic Symbolism, Episode Four, Vespertine. September 2022. Bjork.fr, Sonic Symbolism. Podcast.
This podcast interview between Icelandic music journalist Oddný Eir and Björk offers a unique insight into Björk’s intentions for some of the artistic choices on Vespertine. It is part of a series of interviews between Eir and Björk on each of her studio albums where the two deep dive into the context of the songs. I used this source to confirm that the lyrics and instrumentations of Vespertine were in fact intentionally supporting the empowerment that can come from domesticity.
Press, Joy, and Simon Reynolds. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Harvard University Press, 1995.
This book analyzes the rebellions of the “rock ‘n’ roll” movement through a feminist lens. Press and Reynolds argue that the “angry young men” who were the face of rock voiced the misogynistic perspective that men are unrestrained from feminine domesticity- they can leave home and find power in brotherhoods or positions of control and authority. Other male rock legends alternatively sang about a spiritualistic desire to “return home” to an idealized female figure, reinforcing women’s cultural subjugation to motherhood and domestic life. Further, the authors claim that female rock musicians either display themselves as ‘tomboys’ to deconstruct traditional representations of femininity (but they end up simply mimicking masculine rock rebellions), or they fully embrace a feminine persona as defined by the male gaze and find power in it which diminishes the control men have over them.
The first two sections of this book provide important context on how, across sub-genres, male rock musicians were complacent in patriarchal views, and the widespread popularity of their work resulted in a perpetuation of stereotypical gender roles- with women as wives and mothers and men as nuanced heroes who have the authority to either stay in the home with women or venture out to a society where they have influence. I will use Press and Reynold’s section on female empowerment through the embracing of stereotypical femininity to support my claim that women can find as much power in the domestic space as in a male-dominated one.
Pytlik, Mark. Björk: Wow and Flutter. ECW Press, 2003. Google Books.
This biography presents a very in-depth documentation of all of Björk’s influences, samples and interpolations in her work up to 2003 when the book was published. I used this book to learn about the source material Björk remixed for “An Echo A Stain” which was the play Crave by Sarah Kane.
Shaffer, Julie. “Not Subordinate: Empowering Women in the Marriage-Plot— The Novels of Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen.” Criticism, vol. 34, no. no. 1, 1992, pp. 51-73. JSTOR.
This article analyzes the plots and external criticisms of eighteenth and nineteenth-century novels written by women. Shaffer observes that the overwhelming majority of these novels center around the marriage of women and their subsequent subjugation to domestic life and an identity inferior to men. She argues that this trope, while viewed by some critics as harmful and perpetuating sexist stereotypes, was actually a tool female novelists used to challenge traditional female representations while retaining their respect and authority by remaining within the domestic sphere. Female authors, Shaffer argues, used the facade of the marriage plot to hold subtextual discourses that advocated for greater autonomy for women- discourses that effectively entered mainstream debates on approaches to femininity in contemporary years
While Shaffer uses the case study of Victorian female-authored novels, her essay’s feminist lens and the conclusions she draws about the empowering capabilities of the domestic realm align with my argument. I will use Shaffer’s claim that women have the power to enact social discourse and cultural influence from the conventions of domesticity to support my argument that the home can be a place for the empowerment of women. Additionally, in this essay, Shaffer presents a complex and nuanced approach, including multiple counterarguments that could be voiced by either sexists or other feminists who interpret domesticity to be a stifling subjugation.
Spain, Daphne. Gendered Spaces. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Daphne Spain argues in this book that the physical segregation of men and women in domestic spaces, workplaces and educational spaces has caused worldwide gender power disparities. She claims that across cultures, locations and eras, women have been separated from men and therefore have not had access to the same knowledge that gives men the ability to “produce and reproduce” societal power. She claims that the subjugation of women to domestic roles has limited women to a lower social status when it comes to property ownership, influence over labor in the workplace and public political participation.
This book is very beneficial to the foundational context of my essay since it clearly and effectively describes the sources and perpetrators of gendered power imbalances, albeit through the highly specific lens of architecture and anthropology. I generally agree with the central claims of this book, but I would like to use some points Spain makes as a counterargument in my essay. I do agree with her claim that male-dominated spaces present men with more access to power than women, but I could interject that there is just as much power to be found in female-dominated spaces where women can redefine themselves and their femininity- effectively rewriting the narrative outlined for them by men.
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