Let Women Be Furious: Violent Catharsis in Music

Why do women have to imagine becoming monsters in order to feel safe? We face persistent rates of sexual violence every day and low conviction rates - the highest rate I’ve found a study for being 66.3% (Blandino et al.) - whilst dealing with media expectations of the “perfect victim”. Women watch as their own bodies become political, as the right to choose becomes controversial, and how do they, how do we respond? Anger. But why? Why have we seen this growing cultural shift towards rage rather than sorrow? To explain this, we can look at the answer to most questions regarding cultural phenomena: music, specifically alternative music.

Before I begin, I must make this clear: whilst sexual assault can happen to anyone by any perpetrator, this article focuses on the phenomenon of man on woman sexual assault, as the case studies both refer to this type of experience and it is more common. In Italy, women represented 91% of victims of sexual violence reported to police in 2022 (“Country Profile for Italy”). There is no intention to ignore survivors whose experiences may not fit into this category.

Continuing, in this article, I will discuss two key songs I feel demonstrate my argument: “I Wish A Bitch Would”, by Delilah Bon, and “KILL ALL PREDATORS”, by Banshee ft. ZAND. I highly recommend giving them a listen if you’re a fan of impressive vocal screaming techniques, especially by women. In this article, I suggest that hyper-violent revenge fantasies in music serve as artistic catharsis and feminist resistance, challenging the “acceptable victim” narrative.

Even the language used regarding assault shows this narrative. Why do we call people “victims”? A crime has been committed - they are a victim of this crime. But many people prefer the term “survivor”. The preference for the term "survivor" over "victim" stems from a desire to emphasise agency, resilience, and the capacity to overcome trauma rather than being defined solely by the harm inflicted. “Victim” focuses on the act of violence, and carries connotations of helplessness. “Survivor” signifies endurance: it highlights the power in the fact that the individual managed to keep living.

Why do I bring this up? Because society doesn’t just punish perpetrators; it polices survivors too. Women are expected to behave in very specific ways after trauma: calm, composed, grateful for help (Klippenstine and Schuller). As if the right emotional performance can make violence more palatable. Yet if they show any deviation - anger, assertiveness - they risk being labelled as overreacting, or even being doubted. These expectations are embedded in rape culture, a system that normalises male aggression and scrutinises female responses. From the clothes we wear to the way we process grief, there is always a “perfect victim”.

Delilah Bon’s “I Wish A Bitch Would” rejects this. The song isn’t about mourning, and it’s certainly not quiet. She screams, she fantasises, she fights back verbally and mentally in the universe of the song against the predator. Lines like “Part of me just wants to fight // Most of me is sick and tired” channel the exhaustion at this narrative and trauma into rage, refusing to be contained by societal expectation. The aggression isn’t frivolous: it is deliberate, it is a refusal to be made small or apologetic. By asserting this anger, she undermines the assumption that a survivor must be passive to be legitimate.

Her aggression does not exist in a vacuum - this refusal of “quiet” victimhood threatens not only predators, but the power structures that rely on the silent, sympathetic victim. Systems of law, media narratives, even casual discussion among teenagers like us: they all rely on a predictable survivor performance. When survivors shout or scream or imagine retaliation, they disrupt that control. Delilah Bon’s song demonstrates how rage becomes a form of resistance. By claiming her anger, she creates a space for autonomy that the law and society often deny.

In this sense, refusing to be the “acceptable victim” is not simply an emotional release - it is political. It exposes the way social structures demand women constrain themselves, it contests the idea that pure survival is enough. By embracing this fury, Delilah Bon shows that agency isn’t passive; it can be loud and raw and uncompromising.

Back on track to violent catharsis. While Delilah Bon, as discussed, channels anger through narrative and role reversal, Banshee and ZAND take it a step further. They embrace hyper-violence in a grotesque fantasy. “KILL ALL PREDATORS”, is extreme, graphic, and monstrous: “Decapitatey! Very nice … So I made that motherf*cker face me when I spilled his guts”. The sheer brutality of the lyrics shocks, but that shock is the point! In a society where survivors are expected to be calm, composed, “morally palatable”, the willingness to imagine such extreme retaliation is radical. It is a refusal to be constrained by social norms, yet also a fantasy in which survivors reclaim power in its rawest, most visceral form.

Banshee and ZAND’s violence is not aimed at titillation or cruelty for its own sake - it is a cathartic expression of the trauma and anger that often have no other outlet. The artists start the song by saying: “I survived but I am dead inside”. They follow with “But I can't cry that's what they like // So I just carry my knife and wait”. This shows the reclamation of refusing to be sad. Instead of hiding the pain, it is turned into action (albeit in fantasy). This form of hyper violence allows listeners to engage with the rage of those who have been silenced, those who have been disbelieved, offering a space where survival is active. The lyrics dramatise what it feels like to be denied justice, to live in a world where predators are rarely punished and institutions are often complicit.

Moreover, the extremity of Banshee/ZAND’s imagery underscores a key point: the fantasy is violent because reality is often not. When the legal system fails, we can use imagination as a self-defence. Lines like “They’ll never know what it feels like ya” capture this desire to reverse the roles, to inflict the emotional and psychological weight of trauma on those who have caused it. The hyperbolic violence is symbolic - a reclaiming of agency that has been denied - and forces the listener to confront the scale of what survivors endure every day.

But this isn’t just anger for the sake of anger. It comes from the headlines we read every day: police officers abusing their power, assaulting the people they should protect; men with power hurting others with complete impunity; survivors being told there’s “not enough evidence” when the truth is clear. Delilah Bon spells this out: “It was a cop // he had a family // he didn’t know her.” The reminder that even the “good guys” can be predators leaves us with a devastating question: if we can’t trust the police, who can we trust?

This is where rage transforms into self-defence. Not physical self-defence (necessarily), but emotional survival. It is the refusal to internalise fear. Like Banshee mentioned earlier - no crying, it’s what they like. Anger becomes armour. Fantasising about fighting back becomes a way of saying: “I will not be an easy target. I will not shrink myself to avoid violence”. In this world, rage becomes a rational response, a protective one.

When we look at the extremity of the violence in these songs, it may feel shocking or uncomfortable, especially to those who have not lived in fear of assault. But that discomfort is telling. Why are people more disturbed by fictional violence against predators than real violence against women? Why do we debate tone, language, and anger more sharply than we debate the behaviour of rapists?
These songs hold up a mirror to the hypocrisy.

If we sob, we are tragedies. If we rage, we are threats. Delilah Bon, Banshee, and ZAND choose the latter deliberately. Rage forces acknowledgement. Rage demands change.

And importantly - these songs are not outliers. They are at the heart of a growing cultural movement: protests against femicide in Italy, demands for the release of the Epstein files, increasing public fury. We no longer wait for permission to be angry.

Hyper-violence in music does not advocate real-world harm. No, it exposes the desperation that grows in the absence of justice. It expresses what survivors feel, but are not allowed to say. It replaces fear with power. It is an insistence that women’s emotions, even the dangerous ones, are valid.
Women imagine becoming monsters because the world insists on treating them as prey.

SOURCES:
Blandino, Alberto, et al. “Sexual Assault and Abuse Committed Against Family Members: An Analysis of 1342 Legal Outcomes and Their Motivations.” PLoS ONE, vol. 16, no. 6, June 2021, p. e0253980. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253980.
“Country Profile for Italy.” European Institute for Gender Equality, eige.europa.eu/gender-based-violence/countries/italy.
Klippenstine, Marc A., and Regina Schuller. “Perceptions of Sexual Assault: Expectancies Regarding the Emotional Response of a Rape Victim Over Time.” Psychology Crime and Law, vol. 18, no. 1, Jan. 2012, pp. 79–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316x.2011.589389.