International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. A day that feels appropriate to celebrate the huge impact that women have had on the music we love here at Rough Trade. From the obvious touchstones like The Raincoats and The Slits, to perhaps less obvious artists we love like Dolly Parton (the greatest singer-songwriter of all time?) the influence of women on the music associated with Rough Trade has been incalculable.



But there are also wider and more profound socio-poltical ideas at play here that feel pertinent to raise today. Rough Trade was started as a means of expressing, channeling and promoting a pro-feminist, anti-homophobic, anti-racist aesthetic that has always been, and still remains, at the forefront of our values. As the world has changed so have we, but it remains increasingly important to my mind to re-dress what has become a boorish and cynical modern trend towards de-valuying the word feminism and to re-claim it as a self-evident truth - inherently positive and essential to our growth as a community of human beings, equal and free.