Girls, Girls, Girls

One of the classic matters in metal culture theory is, popularly speaking, "Where are all the ladies at?" Might as well rant about it sooner than later.

Why are there so many more men than women who are into metal? It's a question that's been asked in sociological auspices through the years, and there are several more or less obvious factors.

The overall raw, hard, and to-the-chase auditive expression in metal has an obvious, and perhaps more natural appeal to men, who, by the very nature of things, generally have more muscle mass, are physically bigger, and more to-the chase.

The latter, more so, also in a very literal way: Our male ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years have had to communicate swiftly and precisely when hunting prey or eliminating a threat – both of which were critical to survival.

So those traits stayed in the gene pool. As did the women's, whose relatively peaceful tasks in dealing with childcare and more domestic doings were much less dramatic. And according to historians and sociologists, their communication didn't have the same natural need for directness and specificity.

(For further reading on the topic, I recommend John Gray's "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus". I don't agree with 100% of his ideas, but it's a classic for many a good reason.)

Since I'm probably "triggering" a whole bunch of angry college students, I should mention that I'm not saying anything is right-and-wrong or good-and-bad here. But gender differences do exist.

Oh yeah, since I've probably already "triggered" a whole bunch of angry college students anyway, I should mention at this point that I'm not saying that anything is right-and-wrong or good-and-bad here.

But gender differences do exist; they're biological. Millions of years of natural evolution can't be reduced to a "social construction" just because someone doesn't think it's fair otherwise and the world doesn't make sense to them otherwise. And those who'll conveniently dismiss this as "mansplaining" are the actual sexists.

Anyway. There are more reasons why metal culture has been traditionally male-dominated. Ancient history aside, the musical origins from especially Led Zeppelin also make a crucial difference.

While musically, songs like "Black Dog" and "Whole Lotta Love" are some of the sexiest jams ever, the influence from the blues is also apparent on a purely lyrical level. You don't need a lot of imagination to point out how they glorify the female body and the stupendous act of the good old bow-chikka-wow-wow.

These sexy elements, as it were, would later be filtred out of metal during its period of crystallization and hardening during the late '70s. Perhaps for the natural reason that the harder the music is, the less fitting are sultry, honey-dripping lyrics rather than verbal paintings of pure energy and aggression.

(In fact, does the entire genre of thrash metal have just ONE forthright song about sex?? The first person to name a legitimate one gets a free Global Metal Blog t-shirt whenever those come out.)

But more classically oriented bands like Motörhead still wrote occasional copulation tunes. – Which, of course, have been prevalent in hard rock (especially including the so-called "glam metal") all the way from AC/DC to Whitesnake.

And with the latter as perhaps the most overarching example, it's not hard to see how hard rock music might've seemed like an outright boys' club.

Perhaps the question one ought to ask might really be, "What makes girls and women listen to hard rock and metal?". And the answer, I think, is to be found in an interplay between certain cultural conditions on one hand, and some basic conditions in music perception on the other.

First, our traditional gender-divided labor distribution has been losing more and more relevance in the wealthy, industrialized Western world since the '50s. It's still becoming more and more legit for women to take on traditionally male-dominated hoopla like starting a business, joining the army, or playing metal.

In the same way, throughout the latter half of the 20th century, men have also gradually adopted softer and more introspective values.

Second, music appeals to people on different levels. The very appeal of metal lies in the sole energy itself. And if you think about it, it'd be weird if something as fundamentally human of an expression as energy would strictly appeal to ONE gender.

People are different. The world is an abundant place, and our cultural preferences can turn out in a lot of ways. And metal is a many-headed beast with several means of expression that appeal in different ways to different people of different backgrounds, different genders, etc.

The appeal of metal lies in the sole energy itself. And if you think about it, it'd be weird if something as fundamentally human of an expression as energy would only appeal to ONE gender.