Atypical Girls: The Forgotten History of Women in Punk

Long before Beyonce and Madonna, women were smashing guitars and stereotypes on stage.

Written by Zac Weiss

By this point the origins of punk are almost a fairy tale. Once upon a time a bunch of leather-clad kids clustered into a tiny bar in Bowery, New York, turned their amps up loud, and blew rock ‘n’ roll apart forever. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the dregs of London society snarled about anarchy, abortion, and rioting. The early days of punk rock have been retold again and again, growing more outlandish with each account. But this mythology all too often leaves out something vitally important: ― the trailblazing work of the women that launched the alternative nation.

Punk rock has always been about breaking rules. Early punk bands made just as many headlines for their riotous behavior and political sloganeering as they did for their loud and sloppy songs about taboo subjects, such as abortion, anarchy, Nazism, corporal punishment, and prostitution. But punk is about more than just attention-grabbing antics. The true ‘punk’ spirit, according to Punk magazine founder John Holmstrom, is about “being sick and tired of following stupid rules.” Nowhere was this sentiment more apparent than in early punks’ approach to gender roles. Gender roles were reversed, twisted around, and blurred until they were hardly recognizable. The New York Dolls performed in drag; Jayne County came out as the first openly transgender musician in 1979; and BDSM leather became the stereotypical punk outfit. The goal was to smash through people’s perceptions of what was typical and allowed.

That ideology naturally led punk women to smash the glass ceiling. Though immensely influential in the punk scene, women had been largely excluded from rock music in the 1960s and often lacked independence and creative control over their art. The New York punk scene undermined the status quo with a vengeance. Punk poet laureate Patti Smith dressed androgynously and chanted feverishly about sexually explicit topics on top of hard-edged, abrasive garage rock. Bass player Tina Weymouth set the rhythmic foundations integral to the Talking Heads’ twitchy and spastic art rock. Debbie Harry ― the “Blondie” from the eponymous band ― was punk’s femme fatale, with a fierce sexuality and hard-edged allure that inspired performers ranging from Madonna to Lady Gaga. New York punk women broke tradition and stereotypes alike to produce some of the most innovative music of the 1970s.

The British punk scene, while it often centered more around politics than music, was just as groundbreaking for women. London punk was largely inspired by Vivienne Westwood, whose boutique SEX provided both a meeting place for early bands and the safety pin covered provocative clothing that came to define British punks. Bands that spun out of the Sex Pistols’ entourage known as The Bromley Contingent were largely women-led. Siouxsie Sioux, frontwoman of Siouxsie and the Banshees, developed a powerful stark vocal style that shattered the stereotype of shy sweet female vocalists. In an interview with Q Magazine, Madonna stated that Chrissie Hynde’s mixture of punk’s energy and pop’s melodies with the Pretenders gave her “inspiration… to see a woman with that kind of confidence in a man’s world.” And confidence was what these women did best. To punk women, there was no barrier too big to be broken.

This attitude naturally stretched farther than the bands themselves, leaving no male-dominated industry unscathed by punks’ ambition and disregard for rules. The historically misogynistic music industry saw an influx of women writers, artists, managers, and photographers during this time. Mary Harron, later known as the award-winning director of American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol, and The Notorious Bettie Page, started her career writing for Punk magazine after finding that no mainstream publication would hire her. Meanwhile, Roberta Bayley documented the CBGB scene in a series of now-iconic photographs, including the one that graced the cover of the first Ramones album. These early pioneers created access within the music industry for women to share their uncensored artistic visions.

Today, the effects of these trailblazers are ever present. Women have a much greater place now in the music industry than at the beginning of the 1970s, and have even broken into other male-dominated genres such as rap. But the movement that the women of punk pioneered is far from complete. Stars today face hypersexualization, objectification, and unequal treatment from the still staunchly male-dominated music industry. The efforts of women to carve a place for their artistic vision are ongoing in the face of continued stereotyping, sexism, and blatant harassment. But none of what we have today would have been possible without the innovation, ambition, and sheer attitude of the leather-clad spiky-haired women who never gave up on their dream to rock just as hard as the men around them.

Afterglow ATXOctober 9, 2019