Kim Gordon discusses her favourite feminist books
When Kim Gordon relocated from Los Angeles to New York, hoping to fulfil her desire to become a professional artist, she stumbled into the city’s no-wave scene. Although she had no musical training, Gordon grew fascinated with the bands she witnessed playing in underground clubs and began to immerse herself in the movement.
Recalling the no-wave era, she explained during an interview with Elle: “When I came to New York, I’d go and see bands downtown playing no-wave music. It was expressionistic and it was also nihilistic. Punk rock was tongue-in-cheek, saying, ‘Yeah, we’re destroying rock.’ No-wave music is more like, ‘NO, we’re really destroying rock.’ It was very dissonant. I just felt like, Wow, this is really free. I could do that.” Thus, Gordon began playing and soon formed Sonic Youth with Thurston Moore, her boyfriend.
In a few short years, Sonic Youth were one of the most significant alternative bands of the 1980s, known for their experimental approach to creating music. As the band gained more commercial success, Sonic Youth became a vital influence over the emergent grunge scene. Gordon, who always centred feminist causes in her lyrics, also greatly inspired artists like Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, a champion of the riot grrrl movement.
Over the years, Gordon has played in various bands alongside Sonic Youth, including Free Kitten and Body/Head, and continues to create art pieces to this day. She has also written essays, which she has released in books such as Is It My Body? and This Woman’s Work. In all of these various forms of media, Gordon frequently returns to the topic of feminist causes, something she has always held close to her.
Unsurprisingly, Gordon’s taste in literature features many feminist texts, which have undoubtedly inspired her personal ethos and work. When discussing her favourite books with Radical Reads, many of her picks explore themes of sexuality and feminine identity.
She cites Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary as one of her favourites, calling the eponymous protagonist “the first feminist character in a novel”. Detailing further, Gordon added: “I love this period of French lit, reflecting the life of a bored wife trapped as a woman in a ‘suitable’ marriage as a way to maintain her inheritance. It was seen as introducing realism and the modern narrative.”
The musician also loves Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behaviour, referring to the author as one of her “favourite writers” before adding: “Her writing is audacious and detailed. These stories are almost anti-chick lit, opening up contemporary female eroticism.”
Gordon also recommends Mother Daughter Revolution by Elizabeth Deb as an important read, explaining: “It’s about how feminism fails to address the relationship between mothers and daughters because of its emphasis on escaping the house. […] I remember how the book talked about the pressure to please and be perfect that every woman falls into and then projects onto her daughter. Nothing is ever good enough. No woman can ever outrun what she has to do. No one can be all things—a mother, a good partner, a lover, as well as a competitor in the workplace.”
Check out Gordon’s favourite feminist books below.
Kim Gordon’s favourite feminist books:
- Mother Daughter Revolution – Elizabeth Deb
- Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
- Bad Behaviour – Mary Gaitskill
- Catherine Breillat – Douglas Keesey
- I Love Dick – Chris Kraus
- The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson
- The Portable Kristeva – Julia Kristev
Some other favourites of Gordon’s which explore feminist themes include The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, and I Love Dick by Chris Kraus. The musician also adores Douglas Keesey’s Catherine Breillat, which examines how the French director “dissects her treatment of subject matter: desire, shame, body image and male/female power struggles as sexuality”.
