The single largest surge of women into rock music-making in the UK was in the
late 1970s and early 1980s as a result of two phenomena: the 'moment' of punk
rock and 1970s second wave feminism (then known as the Women's Liberation
Movement). This sudden increase in the number of women playing in rock bands
was recognized by the media at the time in a flurry of articles about 'women in
rock'. Similar media excitement greeted the Riot Grrrl phenomenon of 1993 but,
in Britain unlike America, Riot Grrrl remained little more than a label lazily
applied by journalists to any and every young women's rock band and rejected
by all but a handful. Insofar as Riot Grrrl did exist beyond its media fabrication,
it can be seen as the boisterous youthful offspring of punk and feminism which
I shall discuss after dealing with its far more significant parents.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a marked increase in the number of
women in bands; the number of women playing instruments in bands; the number
of women-only bands; and the general visibility and importance of women within
popular music. Punk and its aftermath, new wave, played a significant role in
bringing about this situation by changing a whole range of existing rock coven-
tions, which opened up a space in which women could play. Apart from enabling
women punks (like Siouxsie Sioux and Poly Styrene) to become musicians, punk
made it easier for all women to get on stage, irrespective of whether they played
punk music. As a result, a wave of all-women bands emerged playing music
in many styles: pop, power-pop, ska, R'n'B, reggae, rock, heavy metal, and elec-
tronic music. Although punk proper was short-lived ( 1976-7), its after-effects

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