The Glass Main Stage

The Credibility Complex

When a woman releases popular music, the success of a song can spark speculation regarding how much credit the musician deserves, if any at all. If women are praised for successful music, the praise often regards the female artist as a customised version of some other male artist, rather than simply a musician in her own right. There is an underlying social idea that female musicians can only be defined in locus to their male counterparts. A 1998 Melody Maker review called Hole’s Courtney Love ‘Jon Bon Jovi with tits’, implying that Love, although a talented artist in her own right, could only piggyback off the inherent credibility afforded to a male artist. 

"Not Articulate Enough on an Intellectual Level"

It is not only the prevalence of the sexualisation of female musicians in the media that is a concern, but the lack of writing on their contributions to the musical canon. 

Jann Wenner, co-founder of the iconic Rolling Stone music magazine, published his book The Masters in 2023. Over 300 pages, Wenner details conversations with the all-male cast of musicians he deems to be the ‘masters’ of rock. In an interview with the New York Times in September of 2023, Wenner explains that “Insofar as the women, just none of them were articulate enough on this intellectual level” to be featured in his book as masters of rock. This is not a comment about their musicianship, but rather posits that every woman to ever create rock music was less intellectually capable than the men hailed in Wenner’s The Masters. Wenner is the top of the food chain in music publishing, having co-foundered one of the most popular music magazines ever, at a time when magazines practically controlled record sales with their pre-release reviews.

The Worst Mother In Hollywood

The media is not only invested in the physical appearance of female musicians, but all other traditional markers of their femininity. A female musician's actions are often highly scrutinised for their conformance to, or divergence from, accepted feminine gender roles. For Britney Spears, who rose to fame as the colloquially dubbed ‘princess of pop’ in the early 2000’s, battles with mental illness and parenting were not considered private matters, but, rather, headlines. Following a successful early career as a teenager, Spears began to experience mental health issues; her rise to fame and subsequent struggles were exploited by a media era that has become notorious for the exploitation of female celebrities. 

Britney Spears was sensationalised by tabloid media in a way that overwrote her public image as the ‘princess of pop’. Discussions around the pop star moved away from her newest hit or latest award and came, instead, to revolve around her appearance and private life. This is a common narrative for female artists: one wherein a woman’s personal life is viewed as more pertinent to her public image than her artistic output. 

At just 17 years of age, Britney was interviewed by Dutch journalist Ivo Niehe, who pestered her “There’s one subject we didn’t discuss… your breasts. You seem to get furious when a talk-show host comes up with this subject”

When Britney later became a mother to two boys, the media used the turbulent public image they had helped manufacture as a springboard to justify calling Spears the “worst mother in Hollywood” - a title co-opted from an article about contemporary female celebrity Sharon Stone. The original article, titled: Sharon Stone Loses Her Kid (No, Not Up Her Giant Mudflaps) was published in March of 2009 on HecklerSpray, an self-dubbed online gossip column ‘for grown ups’.

"We don’t use the expression ‘male artist’"

When women’s music is directly addressed by the press or media, it is often diminished; considered a lesser artistic product in the shadow of men’s music. RiotGrrrl, a genre which utilised punk techniques to scream lyrics about sexism in the music and punk industry, became known in punk circles as ‘Girl Punk’, rendering it a movement for girls, by girls, when the intention was only ever to use the conventions of the masculine dominated genre to send a message to the punk patriarchy. Time and again, women’s musical efforts are considered an extension, imitation, or feminisation of men’s efforts; women are defined only in relation to a man’s world. 

Cultural icon Patti Smith has survived as a modern musician, poet and artist since the 1970s - one of the few female musicians of this era who has lived to tell her story. Smith broke boundaries with her album covers and music. “One of my goals was to create space for women”; explained Smith in a 2020 interview with The Telegraph; “but I also was hoping that we didn’t have to label ourselves as a ‘female artist’. I resented that. To me, I was an artist. We don’t use the expression ‘male artist’”. 

Androgyny was a focal point in Smith’s self presentation. Photographed by her late partner, Robert Mapplethorpe, Smith was assertive, androgynous and direct on the cover of her groundbreaking 1975 album ‘Horses’. In her book Caption: What’s In a Picture, Camille Paglia reflects: “Before Patti Smith…. no female rocker had ever dominated an image in this aggressive, uncompromising way”. Perhaps this is true, it would align with the boundaries we know women in the 70’s faced; but perhaps there is more to it. It is likely that women have dominated images like this before, but that these were not given a world platform to be viewed. I believe there is a more sinister phenomenon at play, however - the erasure of female artists from the cultural canon. 

Part of the way the musical and cultural patriarchy can keep women out of the forefront of music is by creating the impression that every generation of female musicians is starting  from scratch; that, before them, there was no-one, that they are bereft of any female-centric musical inheritance. This is done by providing a limited picture of women in music; those who survive the media are those who align with the media’s interests. Those women who survive the media to inspire the next generation of rockers are often exclusively the “Little girls who are seen and not heard”, as Poly-Styrene puts it. Poly was the front woman of the 1970’s punk band X-Ray Spex. In response to the idea of shrinking herself to fit the space the media has for women, Poly exclaims, on her song of the same name, “Oh, bondage, up yours!”.

"The Female Role"

In Music, Gender and Culture, author Florian Noetzel writes “The traditional view of the male gender role in western societies emphasises power, strength, aggressiveness, competitiveness and logic, while the female role involves nurturing, cooperativeness and emotion”. When a woman takes the stage as a musician, she steps into a role that inherently captivates attention in a way that often challenges the masculine association of strength and power. To some audiences, this assertive femininity can only be justified for a woman who aligns with their other expectations of femininity - namely that she is perceived as stereotypically beautiful or sexual. In order to be afforded the audacity to believe she is worthy of the masses’ attention, a woman must be beautiful. 

In her book Women, Music, Culture Julie C. Dunbar writes “The life of a pop artist, male or female, [is] undeniably difficult, but for women in particular, marketing strategies continue to lean on sexualised images”. The tendency for the media to lean on a woman’s sexuality to advertise her music reinforces a residual social belief that women’s looks are more important to their success than their art. Thus, as Frith and McRobbie assert, “Rock operates both as a form of sexual expression and as a form of sexual control”.

"Is your weight back to normal now?"

The Spice Girls, a girl group who rose to fame in the 90’s, were disgusted by the nature of the industry. “We started talking about ‘Girl Power’ because we experienced sexism in the industry,”; explaines ‘Sporty Spice’ Mel C; “Because we were just five girls, we wanted to be famous, we wanted to be pop stars, and quite quickly we were being told, ‘Yeah, girl bands don’t sell records, you can’t be on the cover of magazines because — girls buy records by boys”. Despite the Spice Girls’ effort to reject industry expectations of women’s success, they were not immune to the intense scrutiny the media has on women's bodies. On separate occasions, two Spice Girls were weighed on live TV by TFI Friday Presenter Chris Evans. In reference to the recent birth of her first child, following a slew of sexual innuendo, Evans brings out a scale and says to ‘Posh Spice’ Victoria Beckham: “Is your weight back to normal now? [...] Can I check? Do you mind?”. “Oh no, you did this to Geri too, didn't you"; replies Beckham, referencing Evans weighing ‘Ginger Spice’ Geri Halliwell in an earlier interview; "This is horrible!" Beckham obliges, to an audience who erupts with applause as the scale reads a number that matches Beckham’s pre-pregnancy weight. 

Skip to the one minute timestamp in the video below to watch the exchange between Beckham and Evans unfold.

"When the Spotlight’s On You"

These kinds of beliefs and marketing strategies have potent effects for the self image of female musicians. Karen Carpenter was an American singer and drummer who formed half of the highly successful duo ‘The Carpenters’, with her older brother. As ‘The Carpenters' fame grew, many reviews focussed on Karen’s appearance. In an interview with Star  Magazine, Carpenter explained how she “decided to go on this diet just at the point when we [The Carpenters] had our first big hit”. In the interview, Karen describes the diet as a “water diet”. In 1983, Carpenter died of heart failure as a result of her anorexia. 

“How can anyone be too thin? Women are supposed to be thin. When the spotlight’s on you they can see every pound. They don’t just review our music, they review our hair, they review our clothes” explained Karen Carpenter, standing in front of a mirror, speaking to her mother in the The Karen Carpenter Story.

Kurt and Amy

Kurt Cobain rose to fame as the frontman of Nirvana, the band that spat grunge into global radio charts and the ears of millions of angsty 90’s teenagers. Amy Winehouse dominated the early 2000’s music scene with her unique, honey-smooth vocal and 60’s aura. Each artist has been memorialised in the cultural zeitgeist as an icon of their time. Despite the 20-year gap between charts denominated by these artists, they have a lot in common. 

Kurt and Amy both struggled hugely with addiction. Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994, citing his heroin addiction as the reason for his mental illness and death. Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning and the effects of bulimia in 2011. Despite the fact that both artists were directly or indirectly killed by addiction and mental illness, they are remembered quite differently.

In life, Winehouse’s addiction was considered a more important point of conversation than her art. When Winehouse received an incredible six Grammy nominations in 2007, the host, George Lopez quipped "someone call and wake her up at 6 PM and let her know" before calling her “a drunk”. To Lopez, it was more important to discuss Amy Winehouse’s personal life than her indisputable musical prowess.

As Winehouse’s addiction issues became over-sensationalised in the media, the public narrative became disinterested in her creativity and unique music, but rather obsessed with speculative news stories and paparazzi images cataloguing the physical effect of her addiction and bulimia. When Winehouse was not being tormented by paparazzi, she was gossiped about in publications such as the Daily Mail and The Mirror who used headlines such as "Back to Beehive as Wino drinks until 4 am”. "I wish we talked more about Winehouse’s impact on music and female musicians”; reflects Lisa Whittington-Hill in a 2023 article on Amy Winehouse; “specifically how her success made it easier for unconventional women to achieve success; women who had their own voice and style and didn’t fit the traditional pop music mould". 

To some, Winehouse is remembered as an icon of feminine achievement, and a frontline fighter for feminist progression; however, for many, these achievements are overshadowed by her addiction and death. This comes in contrast to the life and death of Kurt Cobain; while Amy’s death was considered timely, and fit nicely into the cultural narrative of ‘messy’ women, Kurt’s was met with a plethora of articles lamenting his death and waxing lyrical about his creative genius, and an uprising of disproven conspiracies claiming his wife, rock star Courtney Love, had killed him. Perhaps the misplaced blame endured by Love is unsurprising, given her refusal to conform to typical femininity, and what we know to be true about the media’s treatment of boundary-pushing female musicians.

Janis and Jimi

Female stars are more harshly criticised than their male counterparts (Gies, 2011). This is a narrative that not only followed Amy Winehouse, but also 70’s rockstar Janis Joplin. When female rock stars engage publicly or superfluously with substances, the cultural consciousness considers them “unable to perform femininity ‘correctly’” (Tyler and Bennett, 2010). 

Meghan Murphy, a Master of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, explained in a 2015 article: "male substance abusers are often afforded a certain level of respect, no matter how much they drink or use drugs — women, less so… Framed as “‘Trainwrecks’, unfeminine, and embarrassing, both pitied and mocked". This quote provides insight into how gendered presentations of substance abuse in the media are reinforced, and explains the contrast in how Joplin was eulogised, compared to rock contemporary Jimi Hendrix. 

Two of the greatest musicians of their time, Joplin and Hendrix died within a month of each other in 1970, a year after they played as the two headliners of the iconic Woodstock 1969. Both artists were killed overdosing on drugs, but their deaths were announced with starkly contrasting tones. 

When Joplin died, the New York Times called her a “misfit” whose “behaviour was explosive”. The article remembered her as “drinking from a bottle at her concerts” and “screaming obscenities at a policeman in the audience”. Two weeks prior, when Hendrix died, the New York Times hailed him as a “Top of Music World Flamboyant Performer Noted for Sensuous Style”. This contrast is especially unjustified when we consider the similar fame level each artist was experiencing at their time of death. The article on Hendrix focussed on his career and notoriety, neglecting mention of his affinity for mixing drugs, while the article on Joplin sought to make an example of an out-of-control woman. Despite their equal fame in life, media coverage like that by the New York Times has effectively erased Joplin from the musical canon compared to Hendrix. Today, Hendrix has 8,664,393 monthly Spotify listeners, and remains a household name, while Joplin has less than half the Spotify monthlies; just 4,070,994, and has been far less immortalised than her male peers.