‘It’s not the biggest story ever, I know, but it’s telling’ : women, music, and the confessional mode and Her Fidelity : a novel

This dissertation investigates the extent to which women confessing to their experiences in music speaks to women’s experiences outside of the music industry. Further, it questions whether such a dialogic exchange can be considered as political rhetoric or even social activism. The final question posited in this thesis is whether dialogue of this type can create impactful and lasting change. Through concrete examples drawn from two primary case studies as well as a number of other examples, I determine that women in music inevitably bring their individual experiences to bear on systemic issues when they confess to their experiences of sexism in the industry. I take the music industry as a microcosm of society, suggesting that accounts which draw on lived experience can practically illustrate broader issues of sexism and misogyny in the wider culture. The dissertation is comprised of a novel, entitled Her Fidelity, and an exegesis which investigates several texts by women, all of whom use aspects of the confessional mode. By confessional mode I am referring to works which invite the reader to witness the narrator’s experiences through the lens of a candid first-person point of view. Aspects and specific elements of this confessional genre allow writers to unsettle readerly expectations and play in the in-between space of subversion and complicity. Examples of this include self-deprecatory humour, sexual self-objectification, and the writing of shame. To exemplify my thesis, I analyse excerpts from singer Lily Allen’s 2018 memoir My Thoughts Exactly, and writer Caitlin Moran’s 2018 novel How to Be Famous as well as other resources, including social media posts and songs. I also analyse confessional moments from women in music – including Riot Grrrl manifestos, Lady Gaga’s grotesquery, Beyoncé’s body politics, and Courtney Love’s kinderwhore clothing. The examples highlight many of the issues faced by women who work in the music industry, such as juggling the expectations of a pernicious industry with the demands of motherhood, declaring the lived reality of being a Person of Colour in a white mainstream culture, and celebrating the queer experience. Her Fidelity is my contribution to women’s confessional texts about the music industry. It contributes both a unique, and in many ways a shared, perspective to confessional literature and to the broader discourses to which it speaks