GOLD

The feeling invoked by being within the confines of home space is unlike any notion of familiarity that someone could glean from a semi-public or public space. At home we get to be our true selves, alone in our bedrooms we can laugh the hardest, cry the loudest, and daydream for hours on end without external judgment. For women who record music at home, in isolation, the empowered private space allows for a unique set of circumstances in which the male gaze no longer dictates direct power over their art.

Traditionally, popular music contains several masculine barriers to access in order to record and release content. From male-dominated recording studios to masculine-centered popular labels, the freedom of expression for female content creators has been limited by a prevailing notion that women must pander to the male gaze in order to be successful artists. 

Woodshedding, a popularized term used to describe the process of “going away to practice”, is most often used in reference to male instrumentalists honing their technical skills and intentionally boosting their trajectory towards virtuoso status. However, when female musicians engage in this process, it is largely disregarded as an intentional creative decision, despite the fact that this process brings about new creativity for those who are socially feminized. When intentional creative decision, despite the fact that this process brings about new creativity for those who are socially feminized. When women are able to create and record music in private they access a specific empowered space to articulate uniquely gendered experiences in response to patriarchy.