The Guardian's , Caroline Sullivan says of former Melody Maker editor Carol Clerk who died last week:
"She was smoking, drinking a can of beer and, in between puffing and swigging, swearing in an Ulster accent at someone across the room. Then she saw me standing there — potential competition — and pointedly turned her back. So much for sisterly solidarity. It took months before she decided to like me: what finally broke the ice was my taking a whole lobster from some record company party and leaving it on the MM editor's desk as a gift. Carol considered it a highly rock'n'roll jape, and we were instantly friends."
"In her way, she was blokier than the blokes. It was partly her nature, but I suspect she also exaggerated her toughness to fit in. Men vastly outnumbered women in the music press then and she had few role models to follow, so she became one herself."
Has much changed, really? I mean -- and I say this from behind the safety of a computer screen and with none of the hubris to call myself a "real" rock writer -- within the community of critics, still primarily a boys' club, the pressure to "be one of the guys" hasn't gone anywhere. I know being a female fan, it's still there.
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