“No one can be all things”: Kim Gordon’s essential feminist reading list
Throughout the 1980s, Kim Gordon became an influential feminist figure, bassist, and vocalist in Sonic Youth. During a time when the music scene was dominated by male counterparts, Gordon emerged as a powerful role model for women in music, her presence challenging gender norms and paving the way for future generations of female musicians.
It’s not difficult to find Gordon’s position on feminism; often, her navigation of the topic veers into personal territory, and instead of attempting to speak for others, she reflects on what the term means to her. In 1997, for instance, she commented on how the punk scene impacted women’s experiences in music, explaining: “The whole do-it-yourself thing took a lot of ideas from feminism.”
Although she doesn’t stand against the potentially outdated aspect of 1970s-esque feminist pastiche, she has also been honest about not wanting to be viewed as a feminist figure because she feels her embodiment of it is too “sloppy”. However, she also feels restricted by any kind of label, explaining: “It makes you feel frozen in a way. That there’s artifice around you or something”.
However, Gordon’s achievements have yielded a significant amount of benefits for women in music, whether she associates with the connected term or not. For instance, her lyrics, visual art, and writing delve into female experiences, whether objectification, identification, gender roles, or female empowerment. Unsurprisingly, many of her favourite works of literature also involve such topics.
While discussing some of her favourite books with Radical Reads, a lot of Gordon’s picks incorporated themes of sexuality and identity. One such choice was Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which Gordon claimed to have “the first feminist character in a novel”.
She 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.”
Discussing themes of sexuality, Gordon also mentioned Douglas Keesey’s Catherine Breillat, the first English-language book on the controversial director. Noting the book’s navigation of Breillat’s controversies, Gordon said it “dissects her treatment of subject matter: desire, shame, body image and male/female power struggles as sexuality.”
Although Gordon understands the constantly evolving parameters of feminism, she also adores Mother Daughter Revolution by Elizabeth Deb, mainly because it touches upon the various experiences of being a woman that so many other works of literature fail to address. Womanhood is nuanced, and Deb’s book seems to understand that more than any other piece.
As Gordon put it: “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.”
She added: “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 some of Gordon’s favourite books, which tackle feminist themes, 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
