"The strength of 'Candy Girls' lies in Sonja Eismann's sharp analysis, but also in the fact that the author links historical continuities with current debates. (...) The book doesn't succumb to resignation. Amidst the shocking abundance of material, moments of resistance repeatedly flicker – women who oppose sexist structures, who find strategies to bring about change." Alba Wilczek, Bayern2 Zündfunk
"Women, or rather, artists who are not perceived as male, are discriminated against, oppressed, exploited, and sexualized in pop music. Sonja Eismann demonstrates this in her book with a shocking number of examples from pop music of the last and current centuries, and with scientifically documented figures and studies. (...) Everything she writes in her book is no secret; in fact, it's all been known for years. But to see it all compiled on 180 pages is shocking, to see how deeply pop culture is infected." Kerstin Poppendieck, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
“With its striking examples, ‘Candy Girls’ is a deeply outrageous work, one that makes it clear we still have a long way to go in terms of equality. Sonja Eismann certainly doesn’t leave us feeling resigned.” Vanessa Wohlrath, NDR Kultur
"Anyone who thinks Pavlovian sexism in the pop business has been overcome in the age of Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, and Taylor Swift should definitely read Sonja Eismann's 'Candy Girls.' Her instructive essay, written with understandable anger, systematically exposes the emancipatory shortcomings of the music industry and supports her findings with a wealth of evidence." Frank Schäfer, Rolling Stone
"In her in-depth cultural critique, Sonja Eismann dissects the patriarchal narratives in pop music and describes, for example, how we, as audiences, have learned the male-dominated gaze that first and foremost reduces female artists to their gender and objectifies them." Vina Yun, an.schläge
"Feminism isn't fun, it's complex and it disgusts people – and it takes work! And Sonja Eismann has taken on that work, demonstrating with verve and anger, and countless examples, just how patriarchal the music industry still is." Christiane Rösinger
"Eismann's book is a pointed spelling out of the interlocking sexist aspects of a male-dominated music culture. (...) Her accounts contradict any 'drawing a line under' strategies aimed at silencing critical voices in favor of unbroken hero worship." Peter Kaiser, skug.at
“Feminism isn’t fun, it’s complex and it pisses people off – and it takes work! And Sonja Eismann has done it herself, proving with nerve and anger and countless examples how patriarchal the music industry still is.” – Christiane Rösinger
Young women and their bodies — naturally conforming to beauty norms, youthful, sexy — are the raw material from which the music industry and the very logic of pop are made. They are adored and fetishized in song lyrics, insulted and degraded, used as projection surfaces on stage and backstage alike. Female fans are seen as screaming crowds or mindless groupies, incapable of genuine interest in music or of having any serious taste. And when a woman steps onto the stage as an artist, she is first and foremost a woman — only then a musician. Her body is always wrong somehow: too fat, too thin, too perfect, or otherwise inappropriate. She is either whore or saint — and then, suddenly, simply too old.
In a text that is as furious as it is instructive, Sonja Eismann reveals how deeply sexism and ageism are inscribed in the music industry; how we, as consumers, have learned and internalized the male gaze; how abuse and pedosexuality are accepted in almost every scene and genre. She writes about old men making underage singers perform sexualized songs, about the apparent impossibility of aging “correctly”, about sexist music journalism, superstars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, or Peaches, about femicides in song lyrics — and, of course, about examples of self-assured reclamation, resistance, and the defiant middle finger raised against the patriarchy of music.