Cover art for The Gender of Sound
Published
Silver Press, July 2025
ISBN
9781739371791
Format
Softcover, 48 pages
Dimensions
16cm × 11.1cm × 0.3cm

The Gender of Sound

Not in stock
Fast $7.95 flat-rate shipping!
Only pay $7.95 per order within Australia, including end-to-end parcel tracking.
100% encrypted and secure
We adhere to industry best practice and never store credit card details.
Talk to real people
Contact us seven days a week – our staff are here to help.

History is filled with unacceptable noises: high pitch, gossip, talkativeness, hysteria, wailing and ritual shouts. Who makes them? Those deviant from or deficient in the masculine ideal of self-control: women, catamites, eunuchs and androgynes fall into this category.

From the myths of antiquity to Margaret Thatcher via Sigmund Freud and Gertrude Stein, The Gender of Sound charts the gendering of voice through Western culture. This enquiry into the way we hear sounds invites reimagining our conceptions of human order, virtue and selfhood.

Putting a door on the female mouth has been an important project of patriarchal culture from antiquity to the present day. Its chief tactic is an ideological association of female sound with monstrosity, disorder and death.

Related books