Just One of the Boys

It seems strange these days to refer to an object or activity as "gendered," especially in a post-feminist world, but rock music is exactly that - extremely male gendered. It's not from a lack of talent that female rockers find themselves missing from Top 50 lists and the top of the charts (check out Samantha Fish if you want proof of a talented guitarist). We have been conditioned to think of rock as very male, from lyrics to the masculinity of technology to the guitar itself.  While lyrics often proclaim exactly what the singer wants from a woman, the more subversive symbolism lies in the guitar. Prince's suggestive silhouette at the 2007 Superbowl was not the first or last time that the guitar has been used as a symbol of manhood. Since its advent, rock has been so much of a form of sexual expression, it's easy to see how the women who have made it become "one of the boys" as Jerry Garcia said of Janis Joplin.