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

[Chuck Warner <chuck AT hyped2death.com>]

I'd go farther and point out that the strongest feminist voices of 
the punk and postpunk era were heavily non-Anglos, even inside the 
UK. Ironically, I think this may have resulted from the relative 
success of the mid-70s women's music scene in the U.S. and (to a 
slightly lesser extent) in the U.K.  This preceding generation's 
lyrics were highly political (doctrinaire, even) but at the same time 
the music was almost universally unambitious - and far too often was 
focused simply on demonstrating that XX could play "as well as the 
guys". So, while on the one hand the older generation attacked punk's 
lyrical lack of cohesion, Punk's musical rebellion brought it into 
head-on conflict with "women's music" as the latter existed in 1976. 
And since seventies women's music lacked the intergenerational grey 
areas of pub-rock, NWOBHM, or art-school bands... there was almost no 
opportunity for, uh, peaceful coexistence.  By contrast, because 
Continental women's music in the 1970s had been more anarchic to 
begin with - and was much less distinct from a multitude of leftist 
and "radical" causes - the transition to punk (and community support 
for women who did chose to express their feminism as punks) came much 
easier.

There's also the question of conventional women's singing styles. 
Anglo folk and pop traditions rarely embraced the idea of women just 
making as much noise as they possibly could - unlike Central and 
Eastern European traditions - or many Asian and African traditions, 
either.

I suspect, however, that some part of this phenomenon goes back even 
farther - consider the huge proportion of female pop-stars on the 
charts of the 1960s who were Jewish and/or from the East.

Thoughts?

C

> music (deservingly) fell victim to Punk's musical rebellion, I 
> suspect  my suspicion, anyway, is that a lot of punk-age women who 
> wanted to  Hi everyone,
>
> I'm new to the list, just joined today, but I had a question I've 
> been thinking about and I'd like to get some other opinions.
>
> Is it fair to say that the strongest feminist punk voices of the 
> 1980s came from European bands? If so, why do you think that is?
>
> I've been thinking that it's a combination of the American backlash 
> against feminism of the 1980s and the proliferation of 
> hyper-masculinized hardcore within the punk communities but I feel 
> like I'm missing something (or perhaps totally off base!).
>
> Thanks,
>   - K 
>
>
>
>
>
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Chuck Warner
Hyped to Death / Messthetics CDs
P.O. Box 351
Westminster, MA 01473
http://hyped2death.com