The Second Sex
Punks not dead
Right: two things to spell out, firstly, everyone should read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex it is the urtext on Feminism and secondly, I am a punk rock aficionado (which is just a grown up way of saying nerd). What do these two ideologies have in common? I hear you ask. Well, besides both being blamed for the downfall of western civilisation both are proponents of the idea that women have a powerful voice, have something to say and have been treated like shite for some time. Look, there are too many air brushed vacuous manufactured images of women in the media so here’s to difference. The top ten women in Punk (in no particular order):
Patti Smith: living legend, poet and owner of a gravelly set of pipes. Stand out album has to be Horses and not just for the cover. She once fell off the stage and fucked herself up and she gave out to Bono after he started fawning over her.
Debbie Harry: chanteuse, Sex-Bomb and seriously one of the best frontwomen that ever walked on stage just listen to Heart of Glass and Call Me. (Forget about French Kissing in the USA-actually I never mentioned it).
Tina Weymouth: I’m a bass player, so is she and she has the chops (and she was a founding member of Talking Heads). Listen to Psycho Killer and Once in a lifetime.
Siouxsie Sioux: A member of the infamous Bromley Contingent she was also the ‘reason’ that the Sex Pistols caused a four letter word storm on British TV. However, it is all about the music. She mixed dark gothic imagery with some of the best music committed to vinyl to create a beautiful dark oeuvre. Listen to The Scream, Swimming Horses, Spellbound etc.
Ari- Up (Arianne Foster): Lead singer of the all female band The Slits a band that covered Heard it through the Grapevine and made it into some crazy dub fuelled groove. Typical Girls is a skanky little gem and their album Cut, bridges the gap from the Pistols to PIL. She died in 2010 more is the pity.
Poly Styrene: lead singer of X-Ray Spex she laid into the bondage clothing/idea of Oxford St. punk in the single ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours’ one of the few punk tunes to feature a sax solo. Little girls should be seen and not heard? She didn’t think so. Alas, she passed on in 2011. (We really need to find a cure for cancer!!)
Jordan: No, not the one with the silicone enhanced boobs this Jordan worked in the boutique known as Sex. It was once said that McLaren thought that she was more of a Sex Pistol then any of the actual Pistols. You can see her dancing to Anarchy in the UK during the Pistols first TV performance and she would later manage Adam and the Ants.
Eve Libertine: Singer with Crass, vocals on Asylum and also on the seminal Penis Envy album. Archetypical Anarcha- Feminist.
Joy De Vivre: as above writer of Women on Feeding of the 5000.
Kira Roessler: Bass player with hardcore legends Black Flag played on Slip It In, Loose Nut and In My Head. For anyone that has read Get in the Van you know she had to be as hard as nails to be in this band.
thefrayedendsofsanity 
Where’s Gaye Advert. Number 11? 🙂
John I think I need to do another top ten 🙂