Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

This paper challenges mainstream music industry myths suggesting that women, because of their gender, are not discriminating music listeners. As part of a larger interpretive audience study, fifteen women were interviewed about their relationship with female rock artists who embody a feminist and/or political sensibility. The findings explored in this paper suggest that women are clearly capable of cultivating abilities to appreciate music and cite complex sound, substantive lyrics and professional autonomy as some of their favored distinctions. Moreover, women were quite cognizant of the music industry's monolithic condescending view of not only themselves as fans, but of female musical …