Women in Metal

There has been a long-held view, sometimes expressed as criticism, other times merely as speculation, that the world of metal is a men's club created by males, ran by males, for males, and frequented and enjoyed by males. Without exercising any serious amount of brain power, it's fairly self-evident how this view could develop and has developed. Typically, each and every band is comprised of 4-6 guys playing instruments way louder than they're played in any other genre, with one of them screaming, growling, shrieking, rasping, and every so often singing into a microphone. A cursory glance of the crowd at any metal show will reveal an active, borderline violent mass of very long hair and overwhelming amounts of black fabrics and leather attached to evidently male bodies.

So the $64 question here would be "is this view of metal and its relationship with females - or lack thereof - justified?"

First off, I believe it's necessary to separate female participation in the phenomenon that is metal between those making the music and those being its patrons - i.e. the female metal musicians and the female metalheads. Speaking of them and gauging them separately helps to avoid confusion.

In terms of women in metal bands making the music, there is no shortage of examples I could bring up, but there are a few things that are noticeable that should be addressed.

The first thing of note is this: although there is an undeniable female presence in metal, they are, for the most part, isolated individuals. What I mean is this: rarely do you see more than one woman in a metal band. I've lost count of the number of times when, in the process of looking up a band's history, I read about the band's origins being traceable to the friendship and mutual interest in metal of two or more male members in high school or post-secondary education. In contrast, I have to this day never come across a band with two or more female members who bonded over a love of metal and started a band from it. This is not to say that there are no metal bands with more than one female. However, for the most part, women in metal bands tend to be alone (in the sense of being female) in their chosen band, though there are women from other bands.

Another interesting tidbit about women in metal is the fact that a substantially large number of them are vocalists. Combined with the previous observation that most of them tend to be alone as females in metal bands, it so happens that very often, the female vocalist is responsible for that role and nothing more. Examples of this include Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, Epica, Arkona, and Arch Enemy. This may perpetuate the blatantly sexist idea that women can't play instruments as well as men. It also seems at odds with the other sexist idea that women can multitask better than men. However, knowing that neither of these ideas can hold up to objective scrutiny in reality, the reason why this situation exists remains to be seen. I think that women aren't relegated to the default role of female vocalist because that's their only use, as some seem to believe. To me, women are given the role of female vocalist because that's where they are most valuable and how they can take the band farther. Often, a band will have a male and a female vocalist, creating an interesting interplay, sometimes telling a narrative with a male and a female perspective. Women can generally hit much higher notes with their voices, and with the drive to always be more extreme than the band before yourself, metal bands turned to women when they realized that they'd reached the standard upper limits of male shrieks and found them lacking. Female vocalists also add an element of elegance and feminine charm to some bands, serving as a counterpoint to the aggressive testosterone-driven music - this change is welcomed by male and female fans alike. But it's also important to note that it's not always the case that women fill the role of "female vocalist". Masha from Arkona and Angela Gossow, previously of Arch Enemy, are both examples of women who are capable of a death metal growl that would put any man to shame.

Simone Simons of Epica

Angela Gossow, previously of Arch Enemy

Other than the isolated women scattered here and there in metal, there are the all-girl bands that I don't always agree with. The reason all-girl metal bands can sometimes be a problem is the fact that many of them use the fact that they are an all-female band as an actual theme and marketing angle. Bands like Hot Chili Girls, Girlschool, AC/DShe, Dia, The Iron Maidens, and Judas Priestess are all-female bands that draw attention to the fact that they are female bands, creating a gender issue. In my view, there should be no gender issue. What do I care if you're a girl or a boy, or self-identify as anything else? If you like metal, you can consider yourself my friend. The fact that so many of these bands are tribute bands is also problematic (AC/DShe - AC/DC, Dia - Dio, The Iron Maidens - Iron Maiden, Judas Priestess - Judas Priest) because it limits their creative horizons and they are piggybacking on the success of bigger, all-men bands which actually undermines the powerful feminine presence in metal by implying that men do it better, and that these women are only capable of following in their footsteps and not blazing their own trail, which I think is so very important in metal and in life. The fact of the matter is, there are next to none all-men metal bands who create ridiculous names for themselves like Boyschool, Hot Chili Boys, or Men Can Multitask Too, so when women do something in that vein, it 1. forces a gender issue where none previously existed and 2. implies that women have something to prove in metal whereas men don't, which isn't the case. Everybody who plays metal has to prove that they're passionate about the music - that's it.

The female audience in metal is still small, but consistently growing. More and more, it's not girlfriends going to metal shows with their boyfriends, holding their jackets while the guy jumps into the pit. It's the girlfriends jumping into the pit while the boyfriend waits, terrified. Or both of them jumping in together. Or the girl without a boyfriend or a friend, giving herself up to the music that supersedes all other considerations at that moment, which is what metal has always been about. The problem of female patron-ship in metal does exist, it has existed since it began, and it has not been eradicated, but progress is underway.

An all-female mosh pit

One point that is consistently used against metal is the groupie movement. Particularly in the 80s, much attention was given to the persistent idea that bands were taking advantage of young, impressionable women while on tour, in and out before the aggrieved fathers could grab their shotguns and take the law into their own hands. However, it should be noted that the reason why groupies are used as accusations regarding the perceived immorality of heavy metal is that everyone was asked for an opinion of the groupies except the groupies themselves. Luckily, ex-groupies such as the legendary Pamela de Barres have stepped up and corrected the view of groupies that the media of the time managed to create. She asserts that no one coerced groupies to do what they did. Like her, they went along with metal bands of their own free will, eager to be a part of such a powerful, spontaneous and ultimately wild and free phenomenon.

Pamela de Barres, "Queen of the Groupies"

Regarding metal's accessibility to women, it's always been an inherent problem that there's not much in metal that would appeal to any woman who subscribes to any of society's expectations of a woman. The music is loud and aggressive, the lyrics are dark and violent, some of the men play fast and loose with everything from money to their lives. However, that is precisely why the comparatively few women who partake in the metal lifestyle are important - they are, each and every one of them, individuals with interesting stories to tell and unique reasons why they turned to metal, and it's easy to find oneself wishing it was possible to talk to all of them about why metal is important to them. It's not that metal has at any point actively tried to bar women from its fan base or musical echelons - it's the fact that gender is more or less a non-issue in metal, everything being secondary to the music.

The bottom line is - if you're a metalhead, then you're taken in without question and accepted for who you are. If you're not a metalhead, you can go on your merry way. Metalheads always have, still do and always will take care of their own.