Kennedy Anderson

Humanities 10
March 13th 2016
Petty in Punk
The 70s was a time of tremendous unrest in the United States. With the recession in full
swing and the Vietnam War looming over the populations heads, the nations youth became
angry with their odds of being successful and their shot at the American Dream. The youth
found their voice in music, channeling their anger into their lyrics and each crash of the symbol
of punk rock. Fortunately some positively came out of this anger; in 1978, The Clash started the
Rock Against Racism movement, trying to fight discrimination (Rolling Stone). Though
unfortunately, anger wasn't the only thing that the vastly male punk scene was projecting, punk
lyrics also had a heavy misogynistic tone. This tone had deterred women from practicing punk
and starting bands of their own. Despite the presence of women in the punk scene, female punk
artists did not share the same popularity or acclaim as the male artists of the time. Because of the
status quo, driving women out of punk, and backlash to feminism in the 70s, women were not
given a fair chance in the punk genre.
Up until punk in the 70s rock music had been almost exclusively a male dominated
practice (Reddington). Before punk, women were only taught to play classical instruments,
which excluded them from the rock music scene. In the 70s people began to reject the idea of
learning to play an instrument before hand, people learned in the moment, on stage. This
allowed women to jump in the mix: picking up instruments, forming bands and learning on the
spot. In the 70s women came close to breaking gender norms and becoming a part of the punk

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industry, though they were pushed back into their place by men of the industry. During the
hippies reign, rock was thought of as a noble cause, a passive aggressive way to stop the war.
But when punk came into play they weren't protesting the war, people were pushing back against
society and what they were supposed to do, who they were supposed to be. Until this point
women were expected to follow their gender norms, because they were not taught to play
instruments that would be in a typical punk band. Helen Reddington describes the gender bias in
the instruments girls were taught in The Forgotten Revolution of Female Punk Musicians in the
1970s: if anything, they would have learned Spanish guitar at school, or perhaps classical
piano, neither of which is a rock and roll instrument. Girls couldn't join or create bands due to
the lack of experience schooling gave them, this forced females to be stuck in the audience until
the punk wave washed over counter-culture. People were not expected to master their
instrument before playing in front of a crowd. Women saw this opportunity and started forming
bands with little to no knowledge of their instruments to be a part of the ever growing movement.
Though this was short lived, record companies started signing more and more bands to their
labels but female musicians they were ignored by the larger record labels (Reddington, 442).
Once female bands becoming more sparse, Suddenly, it seemed the powers-that-be in the music
industry would do anything rather than give credibility to a real, empowered woman. Image had
become all important, and men who dressed as women could easily replace all those horrid
women who, like The Slits, threatened to disrupt the calm of suburban society with their bad
inner-city manners and stridency. Helen Reddington explains on page 442 in The Forgotten
Revolution of Female Punk Musicians in the 1970s how it was more important to uphold

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womens place in society and maintain their manners rather than give women an equal place in
punk.
The status quo wasn't the only thing holding women back in punk. The 70s is marketed
as a time where women got a chance to shine on stage and off with their girl power and their
rebel girl spirit (Rolling Stone Magazine) but there were not any bands that fought for equality
like the 90s Riot Grrrl movement. Bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear got press for pushing
the norms and standing up for women in a scene that was putting them down. While it is true
that during the punk era there were many girl bands, very few made it into the charts.
Reddington describes the female punk scenes lack of acceptance into record labels when she
states, [Bands] that were ignored by the larger record labels and the broadcast media, were
bands that featured prominent female musicians. (Reddington 422) The people who had control
over record labels and radio stations were vastly male, making it extremely difficult for women
in punk do well and get their music heard and their message across. (Reddington 422) After it
was realized that female punk bands did not make it into the industry, the girl empowering punk
bands began to fade away and submit to the masculated culture.
One of the few saving graces from the male dominated punk culture was the 1990s Riot
Grrrl movement, and even that had backlash. Susanna Mantila describes this in Ugly Girls on
Stage: Riot Grrrl Reflected through Misrepresentations and how it seriously disturbed the
status quo via its feminist cultural activism within the punk rock scene. Bikini Kill further
proved this when they wrote Double Dare Ya with lyrics like You're a big girl now, You've
got no reason not to fight, You've got to know what they are, Fore you can stand up for your

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rights, Rights, rights? You do have rights. This encouraged girls to know their rights and fight
for them.
Feminism was fought for in punk culture and it still needs to be fought for in todays
society. Though fortunately today women aren't being excluded by record companies or taunted
in the media, but both are still male dominated and white washed. Mainstream musicians still
have their messages and outlooks okayed by a corporate office that decides what they want the
youth to hear. Just because punk culture has subsided, doesn't mean that the people of today
should stop fighting and pushing back against todays imbalance of the sexes in society.

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Works Cited
"Bikini Kill Double Dare Ya." Genius. Genius. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.
<http://genius.com/Bikini-kill-double-dare-ya-lyrics>.
"Bikini Kill." Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone Magazine. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.
Greene, Andy. "Flashback: The Clash Rock Against Racism in 1978." Flashback: The Clash
Rock Against Racism in 1978. Rolling Stone Magazine, 13 May 2014. Web. 14 Apr.
2016.
Kreps, Daniel. "Kathleen Hanna Honored With 'Riot Grrrl Day' in Boston." Kathleen
Hanna Honored With 'Riot Grrrl Day' in Boston. Rolling Stone Magazine, 09 Apr. 2015.
Web. 15 Apr. 2016.
Mantila, Susanna. "Ugly Girls on Stage: Riot Grrrl Reflected through Misrepresentations." Ugly
Girls on Stage: Riot Grrrl Reflected through Misrepresentations. Academia.edu, 2009.
Web. 09 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.academia.edu/10154580/Ugly_Girls_on_Stage_Riot_Grrrl_Reflected_throu
gh_Misrepresentations>.

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Plitt, Amy. "Bikini Kill on Riot Grrrl's Legacy, Taping Over Nirvana Cassettes." Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone Magazine, 2015. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

Reddington, Helen. "The Forgotten Revolution of Female Punk Musicians in the 1970s." Peace
Review 16.4 (2004): 439-44. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.