Where Are All The Women In Metal?

Women have been liberating themselves for the last 50 years or so. My doctor, my veterinarian, my CPA...all women. As a software engineer I've spent years in the industry working side by side with incredibly bright, creative and self-assured software engineers that just happen to be women. I've played softball alongside women, I've skied with women and I fully believe that women are every bit as capable as men.

But, there just aren't that many women in heavy music. To be fair, there are certainly some women in heavy music: Otep Shamaya, Tarja Turunen, Anette Olzon, Tanja Lainio, ... OK, so I didn't have that much trouble generating those names and that's the tip of the iceberg. But still, it's odd. Each of those women fronts an otherwise all-male band. Even Joan Jett and Lita Ford, integral members of the all-female band, The Runaways, have spent the bulk of their successful years in music with male bands backing them. Sure, in addition to the Runaways, there's Girlschool, The Donnas and Kittie but for every example like that, there are 100s of all-male bands.

Why is it that my son is already showing an interest in electric guitar, while my daughter is focused on singing? They both like heavy music but, somehow, the innate desire to be an instrumentalist in a rock band (a desire I've felt for most of my life) shows up in my son and not my daughter? Perhaps it's simply a vicious cycle. There are very few female role models playing instruments in heavy bands. And, the more I think about it, the more I think that's true across much of contemporary music. It's not hard to find female lead singers, or backup singers in many mainstream styles but the list of female, well-known, accomplished instrumentalists is awfully short. Yeah, I can think of a few off the top of my head: Lita Ford, Nancy Wilson, and Lzzy Hale. But it's not a lot. You don't often see women on the cover of Guitar Player or Modern Drummer and that's strange.

Go to see a symphony and often there are more women in the string section than men. In medical fields (human and animal) women are shooing up more often than men. But go to a massive summer metal festival and you won't see many women on stage.

Maybe we're still fighting the perception that women are there as decoration, for visual stimulation. Certainly that would explain why women do show up as front people for bands in much greater proportion than as instrumentalists. That bugs me, because there are so many other traditionally male jobs where women are competing (or even out-competing) with men. Many of those are highly unglamorous and yet women are still drawn to those jobs. When I was apprenticing at KGLT, I scheduled myself with Cara, a DJ for decades who plays heavier music than I do. She can out-swear and out-tough me any day. But she doesn't play an instrument; she isn't in a band.

My wife, Nancy, theorized that perhaps boys are encouraged more to be instrumentalists than women. Except, how many of us heavy guitarists were actually encouraged to follow careers in music? I wasn't. Most of my musician friends weren't. Yeah, my parents weren't negative about my music interests; they let my bands rehearse at our house, they came to gigs, they supported me but I was never given the impression that becoming a professional musician was a good life choice... So, it's hard to imagine that there's a big disparity in parental support between boys and girls when it comes to playing in rock bands.

Honestly, I'm not completely sure why so few women choose to play guitar, bass or drums. We know from classical music that they are just as capable of virtuosity as men are. From many other fields, like medicine, law, business, politics, etc. we know that women can go toe-to-toe with men. Maybe it's only a matter of time. Nearly every contemporary musical style was pioneered by men. Perhaps what it'll take is a new genre, led primarily by women, where they define the rules, the style, the personas. One way or another, though, I hope that when my daughter hits her teens that she can find comfort in music, the same way I did. I can't imagine how I could have gotten through junior high without music as a refuge and I hope that option is equally available to the unconventional, non-conformist, dreamers out there, like me, that just happen to have two XX chromosomes. For me, life would suck without guitar and I wouldn't subject anyone, regardless of gender, to a life without the escape and the reward of musical immersion.

What are your thoughts?

Comments

[Jake]

I just wanted to touch on the women in heavy music bit.

While early metal was almost all male we are starting to see a large change. In fact, many new "heavy" bands are gaining recognition because they are female led bands. It is almost the cool new thing that people are looking for in metal. I am guessing the lack of females in the past is mostly due to the originators being male therefore it would not attract or I guess influence many females? Maybe, this would be my guess. But as more and more females become involved we will see that change and are already seeing it.

More recent bands like Ludira, Arch Enemy, Eyes set to Kill, The Agonist, Epica, Nightwish, new popularity for Kittie, Lacuna Coil, and finally the band Into Eternity(as of 2 weeks ago) all have female leads. These are just the ones that I can think of at the moment.

This doesn't include bands with female members such as Cradle of Filth or Winds of Plague which both have female keyboardists.

In fact if you search female metal guitarist on Youtube there are tons of them. They exist but I think we don't know of many yet because it is a more recent thing. Bands that I know of that have female guitarists are Electric Wizard, Kittie, and Gallhammer.

I think as more females make their presence known within the metal band setting we will see an even more increased female musician population spring up.

[NJ]

There's even a similar situation with show attendance. In general, there are more men at metal shows and the heavier the music, the fewer women attend. I love these shows - there's rarely a line for the ladies room! The caveat here is that more women go to shows where the lead singer is attractive. If the band consists of fairly unattractive guys - chicks don't go.

I think that in some cases the band will try to pander to the potential female following by doll-ing up the hot front man. These bands will attract more women to the shows. The bands who are not winning any beauty contests will be perfectly happy in their t-shirts and jeans, leave off the leather or makeup and get more guys at the shows.

But somehow it still begs the question: Is it not feminine to like metal? I think that some females think so, and further, perhaps think that men think so. So, similarly to the smart chick who plays dumb to make guys think she's cuter/more feminine than she really is, there may be some twisted social pressure on women that makes them believe that it's a bad thing to like heavy music. So they just steer clear.

Do they think that a guy who likes more "gentle" music will avoid a woman who listens to more aggressive music because that must mean she's more aggressive, in general? And if you're a mainstream guy looking for a mate - do you want someone who is sweet and nurturing or someone who screams expletive lyrics while driving in the car? Are women still hiding who they really are? Or not allowing themselves to be open to who they could be? I guess I like to think that some of it is environmental and can change. Of course, that'll mean the ladies room lines may be getting longer!

[Women In Metal]

There are a whole host of reasons why women aren't as visible in hard rock and heavy metal. For the most part, metal is still seen as a "boys club" and women are simply supposed to exist as decoration. A lot of women aren't encouraged by society to pick up a guitar in the same way that men are because it's still seen as a "masculine" thing to do. There is a lot of misogynistic bullshit getting in the way. Women who become more visible in hard rock and heavy metal are usually the ones who are deemed by hetero guys as "sexy," and are therefore more marketable (see again: metal is still a boys club). Women in these bands often get a lot of shit (from both men and women) for simply being in bands that play this sort of music. The very fact that women are practically invisible in metal is exactly why I started the Women In Metal blog.

Here's another article that explains it a lot better than I can: http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2011/05/are-you-talking-to-me-respecting-women-in-metal/