Rock Against Gender Roles: Performing Femininities and Doing Feminism Among Women Punk Performers in the Netherlands, 1976-1982

Intro On November 8, 1980, a collective of women—inspired by the Rock Against Sexism movement in the United Kingdom—organized the Rock tegen de Rollen festival (“Rock Against Gender Roles”) The Netherlands city of Utrecht. The lineup consisted of six all-women punk and new wave bands (The Nixe, The Pin-offs, Pink Plastic & Panties,1The Removers, The Softies, and The Broads) playing for a mixed-gender audience. Similar to The Ladyfests two decades later, the main goal was to counteract the gender disparity of musical production (Aragon 77; Leonard, Gender 169). The organizers argued that: popular music is a men’s world as most music managers, industry executives and band members are male. Women are mainly relegated to the roles of singer or eye candy. However, women’s emancipation has also affected popular music as demonstrated by an increasing number of all-women bands playing excellent music. To showcase and support such bands we organized the Rock tegen de Rollen festival. (De Borst 40)