Women, Heavy Metal Music, and Trauma’, in Shadrack, Jasmine H
This is the typo version of the submitted version of a book chapter. 1 The citation should be: DiGioia, Amanda (2020). ‘Women, heavy metal music, and trauma’, in Shadrack, Jasmine H. (author) Black Metal, Trauma, Subjectivity and Sound. Bingley: Emerald, pp. 31- 42. Women, heavy metal music, and trauma Introduction Women, heavy metal music, and trauma are intimately linked. In metal music, women and their anguish, agony, and torment often amount to little more than lyrical objects, filleted (be it physically or emotionally) for the audience’s pleasure: an audience that is often perceived to be (though may not be in actuality) comprised of men. An example of this, which will be expanded upon throughout the chapter, is the overwhelming success and acceptance of multiple bands who hypothetically (via their lyrics) or literally (via fists, weapons, or sexual assault) abuse women. In order to experience trauma (physical or psychological), an individual must first experience either something distressing and/or violent. Men face different challenges within intimate partner violence, such as not reporting partner abuse because they convince themselves the incident was ‘trivial and not worth reporting’ (Coleman et al. 2008, p. 67), or because they fear being taken seriously due to constructs of masculinity under patriarchy. Any gender can be an abuser, and any gender can be abused. Though these statements regarding other genders are valid, further examination is beyond the scope of this chapter, which focuses specifically on women, their trauma, and how these two linked ideas are dealt with in heavy metal music.1 1 I also want to take a moment for reflexivity: for the purposes of this chapter, I foreground women’s experiences surrounding sexual assault and intimate partner violence/domestic violence.
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