Metal music – it’s loud, brash, aggressive, and for some, like sound archivist and lecturer at the School of Music at the University of Maryland, Laura Schnitker, it has played a cathartic role in her life.
Many women feel this way, like students Mary Beck, a senior communications major and Astrid Diaz, a sophomore anthropology major. They light up when discussing favorite bands like Gojira, Megadeth or Children of Boden, and both are on the executive board of the Maryland Metal Club. Beck serves as president and Diaz as secretary.
While both women proudly call themselves “metalheads,” both, among all others in the genre, are fighting just to have a role their favorite genre of music.
“I feel like women have been fighting to just have a role in metal and to be taken seriously. Even now you go to a concert and people think you are there with your boyfriend,” Beck said.
Diaz agreed.
“We’re definitely underrepresented. I guess it’s kind of weird to be surrounded by so many guys. The musicians, the crowd, the themes are really masculine too sometimes. From people who don’t listen to metal, you get a weird reaction a lot of the time,” she said.
So why are these women feeling so underrepresented in what is known as the “boys club” of music?
Part of it is American culture in general, according to Schnitker.
“Women are still in the minority in all facets of popular music. Their roles are very restricted in the subject material they can sing about. People don’t like to see women scream about ugly things on stage,” Schnitker said.
First-year biology graduate student, Corey Rennolds added his thoughts.
“The idea that the culture kind of quietly decided is that it’s a masculine form of music. There’s not really much of a support for why this is. They’ll reference lyrical themes, but there really is no gender slant. I don’t see anything about distorted minor chords that makes it masculine,” Rennolds said.
Despite what Rennolds believes, there is a sort of stigma in popular culture that women are not supposed to like metal because it is brutal, hard and loud. All of what women are “supposed” to be, petite, kind, quiet and clad in “little white gloves” goes out the window when they throw themselves into a mosh pit or crank the volume on an Iron Maiden track.
“[Metal bands] can’t be cute, soft, sly. They have to be leather lined in one way or another,” Deanna A. Weinstein, a sociologist at DePaul University said in an interview for the movie “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.”
Metal has, and always will be rock’s aggressive younger sibling. It is fraught with both violent, brutal imagery and violent music styles, relying on guttural vocals and dissonant chords. Performances follow suit – lead vocalists thrash onstage while audience members mosh, shoving one another back and forth to the beat of the music, sometimes even throwing punches in the pit.
“I think metal is hyper-masculinized, playing big heavy guitars and massive drum sets. Some people think women don’t have the power or the strength to pull of a successful metal performance,” Schnitker said.
And yet, so many women in metal are proving otherwise. Angela Gossow, lead singer of Arch Enemy, Electric Wizard’s Liz Buckingham and Lacuna Coil’s Andrea Ferro are holding their own in the industry, but they often are only given small slivers of coverage in the media.
An example of such is metal magazine “Revolver’s” monthly feature – Hottest Chicks in Metal. Not only does it use language that focuses on a woman’s sexuality rather than talent, the existence of this column itself really speaks to the fact that women are not fully accepted in the culture.
In an interview with Atlantic magazine, Gossow spoke up against this column.
“[It’s] just all about highlighting the crap that’s going on backstage, highlighting a pair of tits, and all the crazy stories on tour. And then you look for the actual bits on music and you can’t even find them anymore. I don’t even know what kind of music these bands are playing that they are featuring, because it doesn’t come through in the articles, at all,” she said.
Diaz, Beck and Rennolds each pointed out that when a metal band is fronted by a woman, that fact becomes the sole focus of the band. Some use it to monetize, while for others, it is just a result of the cultural standards in metal.
A similar situation is true for women who attend metal shows.
“I’ve been to shows where being a female in a crowd means that you’re most likely going to get sexually assaulted. As a male you don’t have to worry about someone groping you when you mosh,” Rennolds said. “It’s the same thing with a female in a band. They’re going to see you for your sexuality and what that means.”
Beck told a similar, less sinister tale.
“For me specifically, I went to a show where I was wearing a Vader shirt, and I had a guy ask me if I liked the band or I liked the shirt. I’ve also had dudes pull me out of mosh pits. You don’t see this happening to men,” she said.
It’s clear that in this genre, gender marginalization is huge. However, there are ways this can change.
“I think that the metal community in general, people who are really into metal and love it because they love the music, need to work together to make concerts and spaces safer and more accepting,” Schnitker said.
Beck agreed.
“There has to be a shift in the culture where more men recognize that women legitimately enjoy metal. Women need to realize too that they can be okay with themselves as a metalhead, and they don’t need to do anything to prove themselves as a metalhead,” she said.
Schnitker also suggested that the way metal is covered in the media should be changed. First, it should be de-masculinized in culture, and second, journalists and other media moguls need to focus on covering the band’s music rather than the simple fact that there is a woman present, she explained.
More female singers and instrumentalists in the genre can change things, too.
“There should be a lot more female musicians in metal. I play guitar, I sing, maybe one day I should be one of those females. If I don’t, someone else should,” Diaz said.