five ants are still more than four elephants

A while back Greta and I had a discussion. She’d gotten an issue of Kerrang and for some reason her mother leafed through it. She burst out: But there are only MEN in this!

Greta, being a conscientious person, quickly checked and realized her mother was wrong. There were indeed women in that issue of Kerrang – in the ad for nudie pics for your phone.

We couldn’t decide which made us most upset: that this is where the music business put women today, or that we’re so fucking indoctrinated we’d never even reflected on that.

Yeah sure, you’ll find the occasional reference to a “girlband” such as the Donnas, but what I want to know is that if they’re a “girlband” how come say Dillinger Escape Plan isn’t a “boyband”? I mean, I don’t see any girls among them (and since they’re more or less nekkid on this month’s Kerrang, I feel I say that with some authority).

You know why that is? Because, in the end, rock is a man’s game and women don’t belong, not really. If we are let into that world, it’s like we should be so grateful we don’t ever demand to be treated as MUSICIANS and not as token females meant to conceal the fact that nobody really takes us seriously but are busy discussing how cute we look with guitars.

So when Bryan Reesman over at grammy.com proclaimed that “(i)f the clichéd debate over the presence of women in rock music isn’t dead, the often gothed-out females fronting a number of today’s metal bands should literally put the last nail in the coffin” the other day I was almost grateful. If that claim doesn’t prove my point, than I don’t know what will.

First, Bryan, I am no great expert at Evanscence for example, but I do have this thing called internet access and a quick little googling shows that Evanscence consists of five members, one of which is a woman. I’m no mathematician either, Bryan, but last time I checked four was four times as many as one. A quick check on the other bands you mention, such as Lacuna Coil and Nightwish reveals similar statistics. That means that women are in a clear minority in that special little sub-genre of music you’ve picked.

Are you with me so far? Good.

So, how come that when you see four men and a woman, you think women are well represented? Because we are only 20 % of the world’s population? Hardly. So that probably means that you’re so unused to seeing women in rock at all that 20 % strikes you as over-whelming. Which sorta proves my point.

Second, discussing what goes on in the world of wagner-esque wailing about wolves and eternal love only appreciated by girls who spend most of their time tossing d10s is hardly relevant for a discussion about “rock music”. That’s like saying you can look at a local election in Huddinge and think you know all you need to know about European politics. And outside that little scene, women are even rarer. Like, a lot rarer.

If that doesn’t put the last nail in your clichéd dismissal of the debate of women in rock, then, consider this: how likely is it that by coincidence and not conscious planning, the January issue of Kerrang contains only female artists?

Slightly less likely than the world being hit by a meteorite and exploding on Christmas Day, I’d say.

And, btw, you still can’t get nude pictures of celebrity guys for your phone.

Posted by: agneta