Veteran musician Björk has hit out at media reports and reviews of her recent DJ sets at Texas festival Day For Night last weekend, accusing the ensuing coverage of sexist overtones.
In a statement made on Facebook addressed to "little miss media", the multi-talented Icelandic singer-songwriter, Björk described the event itself as "magical" — featuring "some of my favourite musicians" including Aphex Twin, Arca, Oneohtrix Point Never, Matmos and others — but felt that some writers "could not get their head around that I was not 'performing' and 'hiding' behind desks", where her male counterparts evidently escaped such criticism.
"I think this is sexism," she wrote, "which at the end of this tumultuous year is something I'm not going to let slide, because we all deserve maximum changes in this revolutionary energy we are currently in the midst of".
Björk went on to criticise the historic trend of women singer-songwriters being made to feel they have to fill a prescribed set of attributes in order to be treated with any sense of seriousness as musicians.
She says her albums Volta (2007) and Biophilia (2011) inadvertently exemplified the double standard for her; Björk made those records "conscious of the fact that these were not subjects females usually write about" because "I felt I had earned it", but found that "it wasn't until Vulnicura, where I shared a heartbreak, I got full acceptance from the media".
"Women in music are allowed to be singer songwriters singing about their boyfriends," she wrote. "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 criticized: journalists feel there is just something missing ... as if our only lingo is emo..."
"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," she continued. "If we don't cut our chest open and bleed about the men and children in our lives we are cheating our audience.
"Eat your bechtel test [sic] heart out."
The multi-award-winning artist ultimately ended on an optimistic note, however, pleading for 2017 to be "the year where we fully make the transformation" to a more open-minded space, and calling for "the right to variety for all the girls out there".
"I know change is in the air. We are walking inside it," Björk wrote. "Therefore I leave this with you in kindness at the end of this year and I hope that in the next year even though I was brave to share w you a classic female subject matter: the heartbreak, I get to have a costume change and walk out of this role."
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