Having been around that **** at the time, I have no idea what she's on about. Britpop a feminist movement? Virtually all men and tons of machismo to go with it. Their icons were male, the leading figures were male, most of the literature was male, the labels were run by men... Plenty of drinking, lots of drugs and very few women, even compared to metal. It was like some of the androgynous men were supposed to be feminine enough or something. Much like grunge, there wasn't much musically connecting the bands, either.
She mentions it later on, the idea of the ladette was definitely a part of Britpop, where girls drinking pints and talking about football was seen as some sort of ideal because they were acting like one of the boys It's also worth pointing out that the few women who did break through in Britpop weren't exactly presented as being their own thing, as Justine Frischmann was written about as being Damon Albarn's other half more than she was frontwoman of Elastica (and, IIRC, there were stories of Liam Gallagher hitting on her with the "How about you sleep with a real man" bullshit), and it has to be said that Frischmann or Louise Wener of Sleeper tended to look more than a little androgynous the way they dressed, while the only women who looked feminine tended to be stuck behind the keyboards
A lot of the bands were trying to emulate older acts, none of which had any female members. The Beatles are the obvious one, but the Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd and The Smiths all spring to mind. Lots of bands with The at the start of their names, for some reason. As you suggest, bands with prominent women either tended to be androgynous or get pushed out. Saint Etienne and Dubstar were slight exceptions, though they were on the dance/pop side of things. Kenickie, maybe? Quite late, though.
Rock music with bands playing guitars and drums has always been male dominated and orientated. The attitudes and behaviours displayed are frequently laddish or macho, even coming across as misogynistic at times (metal and glam/hair metal/rock). The girl bands who did come through tended to copy their heroes, much like their male counterparts - even down to the way they dressed - so probably did come across as androgynous. The Britpop girl groups you mention were around at the time but owed more to the indie bands of the late ‘80s where the same style, dress, haircuts etc were adopted by both male and female band members.
please log in to view this image Metal benefited from Rob Halford's image, rather ironically. He introduced lots of gay BDSM gear to the mainstream when he was publicly in the closet. His colleagues all knew and either didn't give a **** or thought it was hilarious, apparently. The timeline of Britpop coincides with the rise of female metal singers, too. Nightwish, Theatre of Tragedy, Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil and the like all started in the mid-90s. I'd guess that it was prompted by the likes of Paradise Lost's gothic metal and female backing vocals. Sister's of Mercy's Temple of Love remix in 1992 was a massive influence, too. You can also look back to Girlschool and Doro Pesch from the 80s. I'd say that they were exceptions that haven't impacted current trends too much, though.
Worse, so many had delusions of being The Beatles or The Kinks, but most just copied The Stone Roses or Inspiral Carpets (yes, Liam & Noel, that specifically means you...) I think an episode of Spaced does sum up how utterly self-defeating 90s feminism was in the episode where Daisy has an interview with a women's magazine and she's asked what type of feminist she is: one who drinks pints, or one who drinks shots. I get the feeling Jessica Stevenson wrote that from experience The irony is metal actually fell into the same trap in the early 2000s when there were a bunch of female-fronted bands whose vocalists could bellow like their male counterparts such as Sugarcoma or Defenestration...which probably caught on because Kittie were ****e
The imagery of leather goes back to the "biker/rocker" of the 50s, so the penny would not have dropped to the man in the street (Metal or not) . If a prevalent dress style of that scene then had been brightly coloured spandex, I doubt he would have took that over into Metal gigs (it immediately brings to mind what the legendary Mick Ronson said to Bowie about being asked to wear gold jump suits) .
please log in to view this image Christian Metal band Stryper, who went platinum in the mid-80s with their To Hell With The Devil album.
The lifestyle for much of the time is especially horrible for women. Think of the cliched hours stuck in a Transit van going up and down the A1/M1 to gigs etc. Bad enough for a bunch of lads to avoid killing each other, even if they all believe in the dream. I note that of the mega success groups of my childhood where the women were the story (Abba, Blondie etc) , the females were in long-term relationships with another band member before success came. It also seems that the % of males has an effect. If you think of the Synth era, the number of men in those bands went down from the cliched 4-5 to its equivalent cliche of the 'quiet bloke at the back' .
I think when I first ever saw the spandex clad USA "Metal" bands like Motley Crue I may actually have PMSL. That of course could be due to the fact that in the UK we had Rod Stewart already doing his spandex phase and the legendary Kenny Everett parody.
Ex-RL star Kevin Sinfield is running from Murrayfield to Old Trafford in 7 days in November to raise more money for MND. He’s 42. Incredible bloke.
Remember our old center forward Pav? He's still scoring at 40 years old.Playing for a 3rd tier team in Russia. Znamya Noginsk. Always liked him!