This is no chronological plod through the classic western 'women in rock' narrative ... [Goldman's] aim is to amplify female voices across cultures, continents and generations and to understand the relationship between genre and gender, all the while showing how oppression and hard-won freedoms have yielded some of the most electrifying music ever made ... The language is urgent, often furious, sometimes funny and full of piquant turns of phrase ... While Goldman isn’t especially interested in trying to define punk...her understanding of it is wide-ranging and determinedly global, travelling way beyond the old DIY cliches ... Goldman’s punk, then, is a broad church, including as it does those with views that seemingly go against the liberal punk grain. All the stories and voices here are linked by a defiance, both musical and ideological, born from thousands of years of patriarchal oppression
Revenge of the She-Punks is not a dry academic history—instead, it feels like an exhilarating conversation with the coolest aunt you never had, as she leaps from one passion to the next .. Goldman gives every chapter a Spotify playlist so you can listen along as you read — which is practically impossible not to do, since her excitement is so contagious ... Goldman moves far outside the usual American and British punk narratives ... Compared to most of the (many) writers who have chronicled the London ’77 punk explosion, Goldman is refreshingly free of scenester score-settling ... Revenge of the She Punks shows why this rebellious music survived. But even more importantly, it shows why it keeps turning on new fans today.
We are not going to talk about Goldman's extensive bonafides as a musician, producer, ultimate scenester and cultural critic, because that is a useless way to evaluate a book on punk feminism. Suffice it to say she's well qualified. A more punk feminist approach is just to read the book and then love it or hate it or possibly both. I just loved it. I loved it for many reasons ... Regional treatment is the common back-up to chronological treatment, but Goldman embarks on a wonderfully ambitious analysis based on subject matter. She divides the chapters into Girly Identity, Money, Love/Unlove, and Protest. I mean, has music ever been about anything but these four things? .. one of the best things about Revenge of the She-Punks is the total lack of spite Goldman exhibits throughout. It would be far too easy to do a tell-all book about the experiences of women in punk music ... Instead, she hefts the virtues and the vices into one heap and concludes that some of it was necessary, some of it was fun, and some of it was evil. It's a true and generous move that doesn't gloss the reasons we she-punks still have to rage
A self-proclaimed 'feminist music history from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot,' the book doesn't just retell the story of punk with an added woman or two; it centers the relationships between gender and the genre, showing how, through the right lens, the story of punk is a story about women's ingenuity and power ... in keeping with her ethos that our traditional notions of punk can cut important voices out of the story, Goldman's book takes a wide view of what the genre comprises ... There's a thread of messiness that runs throughout She-Punks: songs that could easily slip from one of the book's chapter-defining themes to another; thoughts on race and LGBTQ identity that deserve to be more thoroughly developed. But attempting to encompass the entirety of this broad view of punk — and the diversity of women's lives — in one volume is an ambitious mission. And for it to succeed, that messiness is inevitable; it only further underscores Goldman's central argument that women's contributions to punk are too important and varied to fit neatly into a clichéd article or two about 'women who rock'; that womanhood is too complex and rich to be so easily categorized
...this illuminating critical analysis turns the table on punk history, which generally focuses on the likes of the Sex Pistols and the Clash...while relegating the female side to footnote status. Here, the men are more like footnotes, as the author celebrates, among others, the Slits, the Raincoats, and X-Ray Spex. While Goldman jumps around, hopping from band to band, she places the female musical foment within the critical context of feminist theory and the cultural context of society’s upheaval. She also highlights many artists who have remained obscure, showing how female punk has been an international phenomenon, extending to Afropunk and female punk rockers throughout Asia.