More than 50 years since rock-and-roll first started to break down social barriers, that ostensibly revolutionary form still has considerable boundaries for more than half the population. Don’t think rock-and-roll is too much a boys’ game? Spend some time listening to rock radio and think about how many female voices you hear.
There was a time, a decade or so ago, when those obstacles seemed to be falling fast, when the rise of alternative rock brought with it a progressive impulse that helped launch impolite female rockers from Bikini Kill to Hole.