Women in rock

Women in rock describes the role of women singers, instrumentalists, record producers and other music professionals in rock music and popular music and the many subgenres and hybrid genres that have emerged from these genres. Women have a high prominence in many popular music styles as singers. However, professional women instrumentalists are uncommon in popular music, especially in rock genres such as heavy metal. " aying in a band is largely a male homosocial activity, that is, learning to play in a band is largely a peer-based... experience, shaped by existing sex-segregated friendship networks. As well, rock music "...is often defined as a form of male rebellion vis-à-vis female bedroom culture."Julian Schaap and Pauwke Berkers. "Grunting Alone? Online Gender Inequality in Extreme Metal Music" in ''IASPM Journal''. Vol.4, no.1 (2014) p. 102

Overview

In popular music, there has been a gendered "distinction between public (male) and private (female) participation" in music. " veral scholars have argued that men exclude women from bands or from the bands' rehearsals, recordings, performances, and other social activities."Julian Schaap and Pauwke Berkers. "Grunting Alone? Online Gender Inequality in Extreme Metal Music" in ''IASPM Journal''. Vol. 4, no. 1 (2014) p. 104 "Women are mainly regarded as passive and private consumers of allegedly slick, prefabricated – hence, inferior – pop music..., excluding them from participating as high status rock musicians." One of the reasons that there are rarely mixed gender bands is that "bands operate as tight-knit units in which homosocial solidarity – social bonds between people of the same sex... – plays a crucial role." In the 1960s pop music scene, " nging was sometimes an acceptable pastime for a girl, but playing an instrument...simply wasn't done."

"The rebellion of rock music was largely a male rebellion; the women—often, in the 1950s and '60s, girls in their teens—in rock usually sang songs as personæ utterly dependent on their macho boyfriends...". Philip Auslander says that "Although there were many women in rock by the late 1960s, most performed only as singers, a traditionally feminine position in popular music". Though some women played instruments in American all-female garage rock bands, none of these bands achieved more than regional success. So they "did not provide viable templates for women's on-going participation in rock".
In relation to the gender composition of heavy metal bands, it has been said that " avy metal performers are almost exclusively male" "... least until the mid-1980s" apart from "...exceptions such as Girlschool." However, "...now n the 2010smaybe more than ever–strong metal women have put up their dukes and got down to it", "carv ngout a considerable place for hemelves."
When Suzi Quatro emerged in 1973, "no other prominent female musician worked in rock simultaneously as a singer, instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader". According to Auslander, she was "kicking down the male door in rock and roll and proving that a female ''musician'' ... and this is a point I am extremely concerned about ... could play as well if not better than the boys".

A number of these artists are also notable for singing and songwriting, but they are listed here for their instrumental skills:
* Joni Mitchell
* Bonnie Raitt
* Nancy Wilson (of Heart)
*Kaki King
*Orianthi
* Sister Rosetta Tharpe
*Jennifer Batten
*Mary Ford
*Lita Ford
*Joan Jett
* Janet Gardner (of Vixen)
* Kim McAuliffe (of Girlschool)
* Carla Olson (of the Textones. also a guitar player, songwriter and producer)

All-female bands and girl groups

An all-female band is a musical group in popular music genres such as rock, blues, jazz and related genres which is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop bands, all-female bands are less common.

A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize their vocals together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense within English-speaking countries to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups which flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s between the decline of early rock and roll and the British Invasion, many of whom were influenced by doo-wop style. All-female bands are sometimes also called girl groups.

1930s–1960s

In the Jazz Age and during the 1930s, all-female bands such as The Blue Belles, the Parisian Redheads (later the Bricktops), Lil-Hardin's All-Girl Band, The Ingenues, The Harlem Playgirls, Phil Spitalny's Musical Sweethearts and "Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators" were popular. Ina Ray Hutton led an all-girl band, the Melodears, from 1934 to 1939. Eunice Westmoreland, under the name Rita Rio, led an all-female band appearing on NBC Radio and for Vitaphone and RKO. Ivy Benson's "All Girls Band" was the BBC
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