Getting personal

When Bob Geldof described "pop music" as "a brutal business", he was talking about its habit of chewing artists up and spitting them out, often prematurely. That much is evident in Nick Duerden's Exit Stage Left: The Curious Afterlife Of Pop Stars. Another newly published book, Ian Winwood's Bodies, paints the industry in an even less flattering light, focusing on the way it "has long allowed abnormal behaviour to become normalised, even celebrated", because doing so is marketable and profitable.

Such behaviour includes the sexual harassment and abuse of female musicians, which was explored in Tamanna Rahman's documentary Music's Dirty Secrets and is once again in the news following the allegations about Tim Westwood. But music is also "a brutal business" for female music journalists - as Jude Rogers spelled out in an article for the Quietus. Writing her own book, The Sound Of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives, caused Rogers to reflect on her own experiences.

Given that women are routinely harangued for sticking their neck above the parapet and daring to express an opinion in any sphere, it comes as little surprise to hear that over the years Rogers has been subjected to much misogynistic abuse from vitriolic male keyboard warriors. Hell hath no fury like a man witnessing a woman brand his favourite artist overrated - especially if said artist is a cornerstone of the tediously phallocentric canon (hello Jeff Buckley!).

What's more alarming, however, is the fact that such misogyny seems to be rife within editorial settings. Rogers details instances of tokenism, of being restricted to interviewing and profiling women artists, and of criticisms of a writing style that she herself came to believe might be "too female".

The Sound Of Being Human is founded on the premise that a love of specific songs and artists is intensely personal, and writing about music is also a subjective enterprise - so the suggestion that doing so "emotionally and personally" is somehow "wrong" is bizarre and nonsensical. As Rogers puts it, "if writing about music doesn't involve the communication of joy and sharing pleasure at regular intervals, then - and I won't mince my words anymore - what is the fucking point?"

If the article as a whole makes for depressing reading, it is at least also a valuable reminder of just how many amazing, intriguing music books written by women have already been published this year - from Rogers' own, to Sinead Gleeson and Kim Gordon's edited collection This Woman's Work, to Adelle Stripe's collaboration with Fat White Family's Lias Saoudi. Let's share in Rogers' hope that this heralds genuine change in the way that women music writers are treated, both by editors and online.