MMS 1 (2) pp.

263–270 Intellect Limited 2015

Metal Music Studies

Volume 1 Number 2
© 2015 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/mms.1.2.263_1

Gabby Riches
Leeds Beckett University

Re-conceptualizing women’s
marginalization in heavy
metal: A feminist post-
structuralist perspective

Abstract Keywords
The continuing expansion of the field of metal music studies has evoked an increased marginalization
interest from scholars to critically explore women’s participation within heavy metal, extreme metal
along with other axes of identity, from a variety of theoretical perspectives and female metal fans
methodological approaches. Since Weinstein’s ([1991] 2000) canonical sociological embodiment
study of heavy metal the notion that heavy metal is masculinist remains theoreti- performativity
cally pervasive in gendered analyzes of heavy metal and its practices. The upcom- equality and
ing special issue ‘Metal and Marginalization’ signals the ‘disruptive return of the inclusivity
excluded’ (Butler 2004) whereby concepts of marginalization, inclusivity and agency
are called into question. Drawing upon my own doctoral research, this article decon-
structs the synonymous and obstructive relationship heavy metal has with mascu-
linity by focusing on women’s embodied practices. Influenced by Butler’s (1990)
theory of performativity and poststructural notions of ‘equality’ and ‘inclusivity’
(Butler et al. 1997; Scott 1988), I discuss how heavy metal scenes should be consid-
ered spaces of equality and potentiality as they permit different performativities and
understandings; thus, creating real pathways for doing metal fandom differently.

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Introducing the upcoming special issue: ‘Metal

and Marginalization’
The continuing expansion of the field of metal music studies has stimulated
an increased interest from scholars to critically explore women’s participa-
tion and positions within heavy metal, along with other axes of identity, from
a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. The
upcoming issue of Metal Music Studies is a special issue dedicated to the exam-
ination of how different social identities (gender, class, race, sexuality) are
shaped by and implicated in processes of marginalization within the contexts
of heavy metal and hard rock. The special issue, ‘Metal and Marginalization’,
was inspired by a one-day symposium organized by myself, Rosemary Hill
and Caroline Lucas which was held at the University of York in April 2014.
Scholars from across disciplines came together to critically explore the contra-
dictory dimensions of heavy metal’s ‘inclusive’ discourses. The symposium
sought to address the spaces ‘in-between’ (Bhabha 1994) metal’s boundaries
of identification and the cultural ‘liminality’ of heavy metal in order to ‘trouble’
metal’s reliance on concepts of otherness, which often unite it aestheti-
cally and ideologically, yet the alterity of minority discourses within metal
appear to challenge its totality and solidity. The papers presented through-
out the day questioned the extent to which metal creates adequate spaces
for alternative forms of alterity or otherness, and how the ideal of individual-
ism plays out in symbolic practices that differentiate and mark the discursive
limits of community. The special issue aims to address the limited focus in
metal music studies to understanding the interlocking systems of marginali-
zation within metal. The ways in which these multiple and emergent subjec-
tivities intersect and are constituted through heavy metal practices indicate
that the ‘world around us is always more complicated and contradictory than
we ever could have anticipated’ (Davis 2007: 79). For metal music studies to
remain innovative, critical and exciting requires that metal scholars continue
wrestling with and working through the emergent tensions produced by
the shifting relations of power. It is about acknowledging that multiple and
contradictory performances of identity exist, and that the pressures to recog-
nize diversity and multiple identities whilst attending to the commonality of
experiences among minority groups reflect the contradictory characteristics
of leisure and modern existence (Henderson and Shaw 2006). To frame the
upcoming special issue I offer a critical appraisal of women’s marginalized
status within heavy metal by focusing on embodied practices which in turn
troubles the synonymous and obstructive relationship heavy metal music has
with masculinity.

Troubling masculinity’s alliance with heavy metal

The concept of marginalization has been central to scholarly discussions,
especially feminist analyses, in understanding the motivations and reasons
behind women’s involvements in male-dominated subcultures, such as heavy
metal. Since Weinstein’s ([1991] 2000) canonical sociological study of heavy
metal the notion that heavy metal is masculinist, in terms of the subculture
sharing norms, values and behaviours that valorize hegemonic masculinity,
has theoretically informed a lot of the studies conducted on gender and heavy
metal. Metal scholars have argued that heavy metal is inherently masculine
because is it a male-dominated site that values displays of power, physical
aggression, ‘brutal’ instrumentation, and homosocial acts of male bonding.

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These performances of masculinity are predicated on the absence of women

(Gruzelier 2007; Walser 1993; Weinstein [1991] 2000), and women’s ability to
fully participate in the subculture is conditional insofar as they must perform
metal on ‘male terms’ (Hutcherson and Haenfler 2010; Krenske and McKay
2000; Vasan 2010, 2011). These accounts illustrate the ways in which heavy
metal and masculinity have become firmly established bedfellows wherein
female metal fans have little choice but to adhere to the masculine norms
of the subculture by renouncing their femininity or else risk being margin-
alized. And despite being underpinned by feminist frameworks, many of
these accounts inadvertently reinforce essentialist and dualistic understand-
ings of gender as they leave no room to account for the ruptures, pluralities
and intersections that create openings for alternative performances of metal
fandom (Hutcherson and Haenfler 2010; Krenske and McKay 2000). If heavy
metal, as a fixed, homogenous entity, continues to be theorized alongside a
solidified gender order, then feminist theorizations of metal are theoretically
and methodologically replicating the universalizing tendencies of ‘masculinist’
scholarship they sought to challenge (Nicholson 1990). In other words, when
physical exertion, power, aggression, anger, pain and heavy metal identities
are only intelligible on the male body it inevitably marginalizes women and the
kinds of questions we can ask about heavy metal’s significance in the lives of
the ‘Other’ (Hill 2014; Phillipov 2012; Riches et al. 2014).

Re-thinking marginalization through embodied

practices: Female Moshers
In response to these theoretical fissures I argue that to re-conceptualize
women’s positions within heavy metal necessitates going beyond the margins
by focusing on embodied practices. Echoing Dawes’ (2012) suggestion, exam-
ining the embodied and corporeal experiences of metal fandom through
‘marginal’ heavy metal bodies can move us beyond rigid understandings of
marginality. Scraton (1994: 257) argues that notions of difference and decon-
struction, which are theorized alongside the recognition of existing social,
political and (sub)cultural discourses, are central aspects to gender politics of
resistance. She claims that feminist analyses of women’s involvement in leisure,
in this case heavy metal, can potentially effect change if we focus on and take
seriously experience and practice. By reflecting on my ethnographic doctoral
research about women’s participation in moshpit practices within Leeds’
metal scene this article highlights how concepts such as equality, inclusivity
and marginalization, when placed under erasure, permits us as critical metal
scholars to account for the spaces that are opened up for moments of agency,
disruption and subversion. It is important to acknowledge that all subjects
operate in and are constituted by pre-existing rule-bound discourses but are
not determined by the discursive rules that are generated within a particular
(sub)cultural context (Butler 1990). In the case of heavy metal, women enter
into an already pre-defined discursive setting that has been constructed as
masculine but these hegemonic discourses do not disqualify women’s experi-
ences of pleasure and capacities to affect and be affected by others (Hill 2014;
Overell 2014). Subjects are always already inside these cultural discourses so it
is within these discursive settings that women metal fans actively draw upon
the available discursive tools enabling them to subvert gender norms within
the subculture. Butler (1990) notes that agency and subversion is not about
choosing whether or not to repeat a particular performance of gender but how

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1. To protect the to repeat, and this variation on the repetition (i.e. metal identity) produces
identities of all
research participants
complex reconfigurations and discontinuities that reveal the fictitious nature
all formal names have of gendered subcultural identities.
been changed. Moshing, like heavy metal, is considered by many scholars to be a mascu-
line practice because it involves aggression, physical force that demands
movement from the entire body, pain, sweat, pushing, shoving and is ‘hostile’
to women because of its intense physicality. Similar to Butler’s (1990) account
of gender, heavy metal and its embodied practices should be understood as
complex, incomplete assemblages that permit multiple convergences and
divergences without the ultimate aim of permanent closure. Understanding
that gender and subcultural identities are socially constructed and performa-
tive does not preclude the possibilities for agency; rather, the fabricated nature
of identity is the necessary site of agency in which agency is articulated and
becomes culturally intelligible on and through the body (Butler 1990). Heavy
metal scenes can be considered spaces for transgressive bodies whereby
women perform embodied resistance through dress, physical contact, risky
behaviours and alternative bodily comportments, which subvert conventional
and subcultural norms about the bodily capabilities of women (Peluso 2011).
One interviewee, Catrina,1 explained that moshing allowed her to experience
her body differently:

I think the moshpit was a big part of my life, I don’t know I think it kind
of made me feel powerful. Like I said before I am quite big and I always
thought that made me fat but when I was in the moshpit it made me
strong, it made me part of something. It made me able to handle myself
in a place where, you know, it would often be that I was the only girl in
the moshpit.

By engaging in transgressive corporeal comportments female moshers such as

Catrina experience embodiment and understand their bodies in radically new
ways. When I asked female metal fans what sorts of emotions and feelings
that are invoked when immersed in moshpits their accounts were absent of
a masculinized vocabulary and they did not perceive moshing as a masculine
practice but a male-dominated space. The female fans described their mosh-
pit experiences as ‘physically being part of the music’, a form of ‘communal
energy’, ‘feeling free’, ‘liberating’, and a safe space that afforded them the
opportunity to physically express emotions, such as frustrations and anger,
that are deemed inappropriate in their everyday lives. Lorna asserts that the
physical risks involved in moshing are what make it exciting for women,
‘… It’s just very sort of liberating, you just feel really free and just excited and
it’s just a big rush you know. ‘Cause you kind of are throwing yourself into a
potentially dangerous situation really’ (Lorna). This notion of risk and ‘letting
yourself go’ is echoed by Roxy and Whitney, who enjoy the practice of stage
diving at extreme metal gigs:

‘Cause when you’re diving off a stage you don’t know you’re going to
get caught and you don’t know where you’re going to end up and that
kind of risk is really nice [speaks softly]. And with the music going at the
same time it’s just [pause-tears welling up in her eyes] … I’m getting
a bit starry-eyed about it, sorry that’s kind of sad but it’s like the best
moments of my life are diving off the stage.
(Roxy, original emphasis)

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 Re-conceptualizing women’s marginalization in heavy metal

And it’s, it’s that feeling of [pause] you know that point when you’ve
been drinking you get so drunk that you’re completely reckless but not
in a dangerous way you’re carefree, everything’s fine but you’re still safe.
It’s (the ­moshpit) just like that but with the most brutal beat inside your
ribcage that you can imagine.
(Whitney, original emphasis)

Some of the women I interviewed experienced forms of exclusion such as

being lifted out of pits, men intentionally avoiding them for fear of causing
ostensible damage, men acting overly protective by pushing other men out
of the way, or being pushed to the peripheries of the moshpit. However they
actively resisted and challenged their marginal positionings by going back
into the aggressive vortex of the pit that differs from previous accounts on
women’s participation in moshpit practices whereby women complied and
accepted their peripheral statuses (Krenske and McKay 2000). As women
continue to physically carve out their own spaces within the pit they are
subverting and weakening men’s hegemonic position and performances
within heavy metal. This is illustrated by Bailey when she spoke about some
of the reactions she has received from men when they realized she was a
woman: ‘It’s true like until there’s a break in the song and everyone turns
around and they’re like “oh” [surprised facial expression] and sometimes
people do look at you and go “what, you’re a woman? You just pushed
me!” But I like the reaction [smiles]’ (original emphasis). It is evident that
there is a real pleasure in destabilizing assumptions around moshpit prac-
tices and physical capacities of women. This is also exemplified by Meagan
who states that moshpits are empowering spaces as they enable women
to challenge essentialist understandings of gender through aggressive
bodily movement:

There’s an empowering aspect to it [moshing], definitely. I guess, you

know, being part of the whole like sausage party is empowering as
well ‘cause you’re basically saying, like, fuck this difference that I was
told existed. You know, I can be as much of a dude as the actual dudes
[chuckles]. Yeah really, I mean, you’re just kind of throwing the divide
to the wind I suppose.
(Meagan, original emphasis)

The women’s moshpit narratives illustrate that processes of exclusion are

always changing and can never be ultimately justified in which case no exclu-
sion can be definite (Butler et al. 1997). So it is within the gap between the
recognition that exclusion always exists in the social world, and the rupture it
provokes that marks heavy metal as an unpredictable and dynamic terrain in
which performing and embodying metal differently are realized. As women
engage with and embody new bodily dispositions it opens possibilities for
‘doing’ heavy metal fandom in a way that is culturally intelligible on the female
body. Focusing on the body offers a way of prompting new understandings of
power, knowledge and social relationships between people and spaces. More
importantly, the ways in which the messy, fleshy body (both female and male)
remains predominantly absent in scholarly accounts of heavy metal is ‘a politi-
cal imperative that helps keep masculinism intact’ (Longhurst 2001: 23). So by
taking women’s experiences and embodied practices seriously within heavy
metal we can begin to unravel the ways in which new bodily comportments

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Gabby Riches

produce meaningful corporeal experiences that create new configurations of

sensations, social relations and performativities (Thrift 2004).

Other implications for heavy metal: Equality

and inclusivity
The processes of exclusion or marginalization of women, and other minor-
ity groups, within heavy metal can be understood as mechanisms that work
to ensure masculinity, whiteness and heterosexuality remain culturally and
socially intelligible modes of metal. However Butler (2004) argues that the
‘disruptive return of the excluded’ typifies the permeability of discursive and
ideological boundaries in which hegemonic positions are never guaranteed or
stabilized because they are always susceptible to subversion. I have illustrated
that many of the women in Leeds’ metal scene refuted their marginalized
positions by continuing to engage in moshpit practices, which are physical
acts that work to destabilize men’s hegemonic position and power within
heavy metal. Another way to reconceptualize women’s marginalization in
heavy metal is to consider the ways in which heavy metal scenes are spaces of
‘equality’ and ‘inclusivity’. Scott (1988: 48) argues the exposure of the kinds of
exclusions and inclusions that take place within a particular context illustrates
how equality rests on the acknowledgement of differences – ‘differences that
confound, disrupt, and render ambiguous the meaning of any fixed binary
opposition’. In this way, heavy metal scenes could be considered spaces of
equality as they permit different performativities and understandings (Butler
et al. 1997; Scott 1988). In relation to equality, Butler et al. (1997) put forth
that claiming a domain is ‘inclusive’ is bound to fail because the various
differences that are to be included and excluded are not given in advance, and
it is this partiality that constitutes our commitment to this ideal of inclusion.
The marginalization of the ‘Other’ in heavy metal is neither stable, fixed nor
predetermined because identities, social structures and spaces are always in
the process of becoming where they continually crystallize in often unpre-
dictable ways. The unravelling of binary oppositions (masculinity/femininity;
equality/difference; inclusion/exclusion) holds out the possibility for concep-
tualizing metal not as an oppressive space but as a complex discursive terrain.
Because heavy metal is demarcated and made intelligible through the stylized
repetition of corporeal acts and gestures, this inevitably opens up avenues for
disruptive and subversive performativities; thus, creating real pathways for
doing metal fandom differently.

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Suggested citation
Riches, G. (2015), ‘Re-conceptualizing women’s marginalization in heavy
metal: A feminist post-structuralist perspective’, Metal Music Studies, 1: 2,
pp. 263–270, doi: 10.1386/mms.1.2.263_1

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Gabby Riches

Contributor details
Gabby Riches is a final year Ph.D. student in the Research Institute for Sport,
Physical Activity and Leisure at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her doctoral
research explores the role and significance moshpit practices play in the lives
of female heavy metal fans in Leeds. Her research interests include the socio-
spatial constructions of underground music spaces, women’s participation
in localised metal scenes, non-representational theory, affect, subcultural
embodiment, and marginal leisure practices.
Contact: Ph.D. Student, Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure,
Leeds Beckett University; Headingley Campus, G07 Cavendish Hall, Leeds,
LS6 3QS, UK.
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: +44 (0)113 8127324

Gabby Riches has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was
submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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