Björk writes letter attacking sexism in the media

Björk has written a powerful open letter attacking sexism in the media, telling her detractors to “eat your bechdel test heart out.”

The Icelandic artist played two DJ sets at Houston’s Day For Night Festival on Friday (December 16) under her Björk Digital moniker, which combines the artist’s digital, audio and visual works.

However, Björk has responded to negative reviews of her set with an open letter that addresses the sexism that female artists face with how their performances, and indeed art, are received.

Writing on Facebook to “little miss media”, Björk firstly thanked her fans for “letting me be me” with regards to her venture into DJing but slammed “some media” for not being able to “get their head around that I was not ‘performing’ and ‘hiding’ behind desks,” a criticism that she believes is not aimed at her male counterparts.

“Women in music are allowed to be singer songwriters singing about their boyfriends,” she continued. “If they change the subject matter to atoms, galaxies, activism, nerdy math beat editing or anything else than being performers singing about their loved ones, they get criticised; journalists feel there is just something missing … as if our only lingo is emo…”

Referencing the fact that she wrote her albums Volta and Biophilia “about subjects that females [don’t] usually write about”, she then said that it wasn’t until her 2015 album Vulnicura that she got “full acceptance” from the media.

“Men are allowed to go from subject to subject, do sci-fi, period pieces, be slapstick and humorous, be music nerds getting lost in sculpting soundscapes, but not women. If we don’t cut our chest open and bleed about the men and children in our lives, we are cheating our audience.”

Ending the letter on a hopeful note, Björk said “Let’s make 2017 the year where we fully make the transformation!!! The right to variety for all the girls out there!!!”

Read her full statement below.

The February 2017 issue of Uncut is now on sale in the UK – featuring our cover story on Leonard Cohen. Elsewhere in the issue, we look at the 50 Great Modern Protest Songs and our free CD collects 15 of the very best, featuring Ry Cooder, Jarvis Cocker, Roy Harper, Father John Misty, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Richard Thompson. The issue also features our essential preview of the key albums for 2017, including Roger Waters, Fleet Foxes, Paul Weller, The Jesus And Mary Chain, the Waterboys and more. Plus Leon Russell, Mike Oldfield, Ty Segall, Tift Merritt, David Bowie, Japandroids, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Wilco, The XX, Grateful Dead, Mark Eitzel and more plus 139 reviews