(Not so) Angry Women in Rock

I feel like a relic of another generation where women with ripped stockings snarled lyrics into microphones and smashed guitars. Rage against the patriarchy! Where did they go? Were all of them replaced by either nice girls singing about high school crushes, or skimpily-clad vixens? Jude Rogers for the Guardian asks the same question: Are there any angry women left in rock?


"...women in rock are rarely angry any more. It wasn't always this way. After the Runaways, a rush of punk performers – including Siouxsie Sioux and X-Ray Spex's Poly Styrene (who mocked people who thought "little girls should be seen and not heard") – and then later the riot grrrl groups of the early 1990s showcased women who offered empowering messages as they pummelled their guitar strings. Twenty years later, the charts are full of female musicians, so maybe their predecessors genuinely opened doors, and also broke down prejudices. But look behind the charts. Look, say, to the media. Look at Q magazine, for example, which still treats "women in rock" as a genre all of its own, and only featured three women on its cover in the last year, all in states of undress (Lady Gaga, Cheryl Cole and Lily Allen). Have women yet been accepted in rock music on their own terms?

You could argue that there will always be room at the top for those artists willing to "sex up their image," and that the raw, angry punk of the 70s, and later the riot grrrl bands of the 90s weren't exactly selling out arenas, but there was a small window of acceptance -- or at least curiosity -- especially in the early 90s with mainstream magazines featuring bands like Hole and Liz Phair. (Both sold a fair amount of records, I recall.) The charts may be littered with female artists, but at what price?