Although heavy metal music clearly doesn’t make everyone’s day - to some of us, it’s an outlet where we can let go and set our pent up frustrations and angers free in a positive and constructive way. It’s a community of “weirdos” that understand this uncommon connection to the rage and ferocious energy metal music releases and the way it leaves you feeling like a brand new person with fresh, perspectives, inspirations and a soaring confidence.

It’s way too common a misconception that because the music sounds aggressive and violent, the people that like it must be depressed, suicidal, violent and terrible people. Combined with the typical style you see amongst most metal heads - long hair, black clothes, t-shirts with violent band logos and a generally “tough” or “unapproachable” outward appearance, especially among those that love the darker and heavier side of metal (heavy metal is probably the least “heavy” and happiest sounding of all types of metal. Ex: Death Metal, Thrash, etc.) I’m sure, as is the case in most music genres that there are the exceptions to this observation - but in my experience, metal heads are very genuine and good people. Even though pits are crazy and people thrash and throw punches and there’s the occasional bloody nose or busted lip - if someone goes down, you will see several people jump to their aid to help them up or create a barrier around them so they can recover. A number of the most popular metal musicians right now are human rights and animal rights activists. Your average metal head is often more versed in political and social issues than the typical country music lover or pop enthusiast. While the metal community is filled with a staggering number of genuine and respectful people, a large part of the scene is still very caught up in the “dark ages” of the industry or has become lost to the demands of pop culture to conform. This is especially evident as a female fan of heavy metal music.

For as long as I can remember, music has been a huge part of my life. I like to tell people that I’ve been a metal fan since before I was born - while my mother was still pregnant with me, she attended a Van Halen concert. All of my best childhood memories have a soundtrack that plays in the background constantly. Bands like Van Halen, U2, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and many others became an integral part of my every day. My grandmom introduced me to classical music and opera before I could really even comprehend what it meant - when I was just in preschool I knew all the words to the songs in The Phantom of the Opera and Queen of the Night (Magic Flute.) All my life, music has moved me and shaped my experiences. When I was in high school, I experienced the typical teenage angst rebellion phase and discovered Motley Crue, Guns’N’Roses, and Rage Against the Machine and downright fell in love with the insane energy and “fight the system” attitudes that they embodied. By the time I was sixteen, heavy metal just wasn’t heavy enough for me. That’s when I discovered a new wave of metal music and fell head over heels for bands like Arch Enemy, Within Temptation, The Agonist, Amaranthe, Nightwish, and Lacuna Coil - All fronted by angry, threatening, talented and stunning women that had battled their own way into the metal industry - changing it forever and giving girls like myself a new confidence in what it means to be a tough, liberated women that just wants to thrash. It was as if I had found what I was looking for all along - a justification that women can love metal music and not need to be masculine or prove themselves in some male dictated way as true metal fans. Sadly, this is still not entirely the case...

This past weekend I attended a great metal show in Asheville, NC. The bands were local and not super well known - but regardless, the show was wonderful! The first band was full of energy, stirring up the small crowd and setting the show off to a wild and raging start. The second band was just as good and at that point I was really getting into it (some whiplash might have occurred during this set.) At some point while the second band was playing, a guy approached my friend and I. At first he acted pretty innocuous - as if he was just trying to get us more into the music. Pretty quickly though, things went south. The song was coming to an end and he positioned himself between my friend and I and proceeded to put his arms around our waists and attempt to pull us closer. When we both pulled away, clearly uninterested, he attempted to save his hurt ego and turned to shake my hand saying "Well it was nice to meet you ladies anyway." When I said he didn't even ask our names so how could he act like he had "met us" in any way, he proceeded to grumble, "It doesn't matter anyway," and angrily slither away. We dipped out of that situation pretty quickly - leaving the pit and returning to the bar where we were both uncomfortable and at a loss for words at this encounter. I was fuming. In an attempt to not let our night be ruined by this one instance of outright insolence, we quickly leaped back in to the and were head banging to the music with a new eagerness and resolve.

---

After the show, this one moment kept coming back to me and the more I thought back on it - the angrier I became. WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS??! Why the hell does he think it’s okay to come up to two women clearly at this show to enjoy the music and thrash like everyone else, and to touch them and to talk down to them? And so what if he was drunk?? He has no right to come in and disrespect us and treat us like we are there for his pleasure and ego. I left the show not feeling relieved or rejuvenated, but furiously aggravated with the entire industry and its support of this aggression, disrespect, and hatred toward women.

Often, when I bring up my frustration at being treated this way in situations like this one, people will ask, “Well what were you wearing? You do dress like you want attention.” “Did you act flirty at all? Maybe he just got the wrong vibe from you.” “Well, he’s just a guy, he can’t help it. Boys will be boys.” Sounds familiar, huh? In many instances involving the disrespect or abuse of women, there is always a degree of suspicion and blame put on the woman. There is a huge level of fear and oppression when it comes to interactions between men and women in more than just the metal scene, as soon as a woman steps in and something goes wrong - the woman is blamed and questioned as to how she could tempt or lead a man astray. (Think Eve or Dress code rules - girls can’t show their shoulders because it distracts boys from learning?)

So why did this guy at the show approach us like that? Why did he think it was okay? The answer is pretty simple in his mind - because we are women and he is a man, he has the right to degrade us and treat us like second-class citizens of the metal world. But even worse, this mindset has been commonplace in the metal industry since the beginning of the scene. Women at concerts were the girlfriends or groupies and only there to make the men look better or feed their egos. Metal was ruled by men and sold as a scene that worshiped the masculine and controlled and rejected the feminine (Glam rock is a whole different story - also a different article.) While some has changed since the 70s and 80s when the scene was really started and discrimination against minorities is on the decline in our part of the world, not much has changed in a lot of the metal industry. From violence against women, extreme sexism, open misogyny and over sexualizing of females - all be found depicted in lyrics and images of our current, 2016 metal music. Women in the metal world are still viewed suspiciously by many of the men and are treated like "groupies" or sluts when they attend metal shows. Often, there are men that question what a woman is even doing at a metal show, asking them where their boyfriend is or if they're looking to hook up - as if there is no conceivable way a woman could truly be there for the music.

On top of the general contempt of women in the metal scene, they are also judged and held to impossibly high standards of beauty and perfection. If you don't believe me, just go to Youtube or Google and type in "Women of Metal Music" and see what you get. Youtube tops hits will be along the lines of "Hottest Women in Metal" or "Sexiest Front Women of Metal" - focusing the most on the semi-talented, scantily clad, sexualized women with very little real appeal for metal fans other than as sexual objects. Google is even worse, bringing up images of the same women, photoshopped and malformed into unrecognizable sexual objects often depicted being strangled or chained up by large muscular men surrounded by weapons and gore. I won't even get into the damage sites like Tumblr and Instagram have wrought on our standing in the metal world. To add insult to injury - a lot of women actually WANT to be sexualized like this and think the attention is a good thing. This leaves the rest of us that don't act like or strive to be sexual objects, on the sidelines and treated like theres something wrong with us for not wanting this kind of cheap attention.

There are plenty examples of these double standards when it comes to women vs. men in the metal world from the difference in interview questions (“What’s it like being in an all girls band? - “I dunno - what’s it like being in an all guys band?”) to a lack of focus on an artist’s actual talent and more on their physical appearance or who they're dating. Promoters often get so lost in the fact that there are tough women fronting these epic metal bands that they treat them like a novelty - advertising them based only on the fact that there are girls in the band instead of on how great their music is. To address these double standards, the majority of men in the metal world are not right out of Men’s Magazine - so of course it doesn’t make any sense to judge them by those standards. Imagine if we started judging them that way, “Oh, Dimmu Borgir is an alright band, but they’re so ugly I can’t really get into their music.” It doesn’t make sense - and it doesn’t make sense to judge women by these standards either. But as ridiculous as it sounds, it’s still happening.

In 2005, the UK band Nightwish, voted to kick out their female vocalist Tarja Turunen, who had been with them for almost nine years, claiming that she no longer worked to help the music grow and evolve and was becoming a "diva" on tours that they no longer could deal with. This seemed like a good enough reason until they brought in a new female vocalist who is talented, but obviously younger and more open to being half naked on stage. Their music changed drastically and even though they still had the same name, they are no longer the Nightwish that fans fell in love with at the start. So at this point, a lot of fans really started to question the band’s motives - were they really still all about the music or did they care more about their image and making money off of it? That still remains to be seen. Unfortunately this still a pretty common occurrence and struggle for many metal bands looking to be in the spotlight - society requires conformity.

One of the most popular "metal" bands in the scene right now is the very mainstream, semi-talented, always advertised as female fronted and super sexualized, In This Moment. The vocalist, Maria Brink, initially draws people in as "eye candy" with her half naked and super sexualized costumes that consist of distasteful, on the verge pornographic, lingerie, bondage, and skin. Unfortunately, people get conned into listening to and supporting their music through its embarrassingly basic lyrical content ("Blood, blood, blood, pour more through my veins
I'm a dirty, dirty girl. I want it filthy") and consistently boring whiny vocals that sound exactly the same no matter the song - because sex sells. Bands like this cheapen the existence of women in the metal scene and give off the impression that every female in the industry is just there begging for sexual favors and attention from men. (Sex Metal Barbie, Whore, Call Me - Are you kidding me??)

I quickly jumped to the same conclusions when I found out that the front woman of one of my favorite bands, Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy, would be leaving and replaced with another. Luckily, I was angry too quickly, and found out in a release by Gossow that she would be stepping down as vocalist and stepping into the role as business manager by her own choice. The new female front woman, Alissa White-Gluz formerly of Agonist, is a breathe of fresh air for the scene and has only gone above and beyond what I anticipated; establishing herself as a advocate and role model for women in metal just as her predecessor did. She has stayed true to the sound and image of the original Arch Enemy, keeping the strong and threatening feminine image and sound as well as keeping her clothes on. They are just two prime examples of women that are standing for equality and freedom for women in the metal scene – there are many others. My hope is that women like this in the metal world will inspire and give confidence to many other girls and women that will follow suit. I know they inspired me.

There is still so much more to be addressed and brought to public knowledge when it comes to women in the metal world. This conversation is one that a lot of people would rather just avoid and act as if it’s not really an issue. But as long as we continue to persistently feed this view and culture - it will only linger as the parasite that it is and suck all the joy out of what it means to be women in the metal scene. We’ve already shown the world the power of metal music to transform a generation. So this is a call to arms for anyone that cares about the music and wants to see it endure as a positive and thriving community of passionate people - it’s time for change to happen and it will start at the heart and soul of the metal community. The passion and drive of this tribe will change a nation and a culture for the better when people come together and fight for this cause.

Remember the Vikings - who are known as furious and unwavering warriors of Odin and looked up to by many of you guys in the metal world, worshiped Freyja and their shield maidens and warrior wives and remembered the worth and fire of a strong women. Prove your viking warrior metal soul still exists at its roots by supporting and fighting for the incredible women of the metal scene as the goddesses that they are.