KARISHMA D'MELLO
Conventionally deemed as an
“all boys club” with little or
no room for women, metal has
come a long way since 1979 when
Girlschool an all girl band began
their collaboration alongside
Motorhead and went on to
release “The St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre (EP)”. What started
off as a largely male dominated
fan base, with women spotted
back-staging as groupies, heavy
metal has earned itself a large
following of metal-head women
from all across the globe.
Contrary to popular belief
women, the heavy metal
culture does not discriminate
and is all welcoming in its fan
base. Women have celebrating
and appreciating metal and
other extreme genre for a very
long time, however, being
the kind of genre that pushes
for more aggressive sound
(a characteristic women are
not deemed poster children
for) female artists within
the genre often struggle
to be taken seriously.
On exploring the albeit
controversial sub-genre of
“glam metal”, you’ll find that,
in many ways, heavy metal
celebrates femininity. Bands
like Twisted Sister, Posion,
Motley Crue and Kiss would put
on live performances in lace
and full heads of make-up. Now
perhaps this is a more superficial
representation of femininity, but
it is femininity, nevertheless.
GROUPIES AND
GUITARISTS:
WOMEN AND
HEAVY METAL
28
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
Violence in general is a prevalent
theme particularly in a lot of
death metal or extreme sub-
genres of metal. While some
of this can be categorized as
violence against women, it
could be argued that a greater
percentage speaks of violence
in general. In that regard alone,
metal does not discriminate. It
does not specifically perpetuate
an “anti-woman”, misogynistic
view, rather it embraces violence
as a whole. With the exception
of a few questionable band
names and lyrics, its aggression
isn’t specific towards women.
In the heavy metal documentary
“A Headbanger’s Journey”,
created by Canadian
anthropologist Sam Dunn,
several female artists were
interviewed to get their take on
their personal experiences as
female musicians. While each
interview highlighted a varying
issue, the underlying premise,
in a nutshell was that female
artists are treated differently
than their male counterparts.
Mercedes and Morgan Lander of
Kittie mention that “talent isn’t
always enough in the eyes of the
masses. You have to be attractive
if you’re a woman.” Jackie
Chambers and Kim McAuliffe of
Girlschool have also been on the
receiving end of blatant sexism
in relation to being women who
perform as heavy metal artists.
Doro Pesch was asked to take
on a more feminine image and
drop the “leather jacket act”
to create a more appealing
image for her on-stage image.
If you do zone in on a few
countries that seem to be averse
to women in metal bands, you’d
find that it’s a part of a much
larger issue altogether. It isn’t
that talented women aren’t taken
seriously as a rock or heavy
metal band, it’s just that being
in any kind of musical group
short of a church choir would
be severely frowned upon (if
not much, much worse) in a lot
of societies. If it is a rarity in
places like Saudi Arabia, clearly
it is for very different reasons.
While that may be so in a few
select countries, the situation
isn’t that bad on an international
scale. Clearly we’ve come a
long way since then, with all-
girl bands like The Runaways
clearly being recognized for
their talent alone. With bands
like Swedish death metal act
Arch Enemy that was formerly
fronted by Angela Gossow,
Otep led by Otep Shamaya and
Halestorm, fronted by Lizzy
Hale, all huge names in metal,
female metal artists clearly
aren’t as much of a novelty as it
used to be. It is safe to say that
a lot of women (if not all) are
definitely being celebrated as
musicians, gender be damned!