Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Sharon Cheslow <decomposition AT mindspring.com>]

This thread reminded me of one of my favorite essays on girl bands - 
it's by Lucy Toothpaste (Lucy Whitman, who put out the fanzine Jolt) 
from a book titled Punk by Julie Davis.  It was published in 1977 and 
I bought it a couple of years later.  It really changed the way I 
thought about girls doing music, even if I didn't agree with 
everything she said.  I'm not sure if it was originally published in 
Jolt of if it's ever been published anywhere else.  I still think 
it's relevant in terms of thinking about how we perceive female 
musicians, regardless of genre.  Enjoy:

"Well, why aren't there any real girl punk musicians around?  I know 
there's sposed to be The Slits but all I've seen them do is spit at 
Eater - do they ever play any gigs?  Siouxsie & the Banshees aren't 
exactly the most frequent performers and even then Siouxsie doesn't 
play an instrument (perhaps she will next time?).  Same with Stinky 
Toys.  I thought their singer Ellie was good when I saw them at the 
100 Club, but why do all of these girls rely on male 
instrumentalists?  Patti Smith at least doesn't let not being able to 
play the guitar stop her from playing it, but she still doesn't dare 
dispense with her more 'accomplished' male backers.

The only all-female rock band I've seen is The Runaways, and we all 
know about them - platform shoes, inset flares, and music to match. 
They're just cardboard cut-outs, Kim Flowley, pleading 'Don't abuse 
me' while they've got SCREW ME written all over their stupid faces. 
Most of the audience at the Roundhouse were incredibly enthusiastic 
considering the music was so tame.  (And I don't think it was just 
because they were turned on by the girls' bodies - though I might be 
wrong there.  And if it was just because they were surprised that 
girls could actually play, and thought that made up for playing 
shitty material, what could be more fucking patronizing?)

There were quite a few punks in the audience who must've turned up 
like me in the hope of something better.  I think that everybody 
wants female bands badly, otherwise they wouldn't have been so 
TOLERANT.  No self-respecting punk would have stayed even halfway 
through if the same material had been played by a male band.

But it's not really surprising if girls are still a bit uncertain 
about how to bust into rock.  The very fact that rock, the so-called 
rebel culture, has always been completely male dominated just goes to 
show once more that if there's one person more oppressed than a 
teenage boy it's a teenage girl.  Girls've been so squashed that we 
haven't even dared complain.  And now we've woken up at last, we 
haven't just got to cope with the total lack of encouragement and 
precedent, but also put up with the gawping and sniggering of the 
male music establishment.

Any girl band immediately attracts attention just cos they stick out 
like a sore thumb, they can't be judged on their own merits, so 
they're bound to be self-conscious.  But NOW's the time for us to get 
going, it doesn't matter if we don't know how to play the guitar yet, 
we can soon learn to play as wells as any other punk band, and I 
think the punk public is just waiting for more girl bands to appear. 
I am, anyway."