Participation of Japanese Women in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal

Abstract

Hard rock and heavy metal are male–dominated music genres, yet despite a low status of women, Japan has a larger percentage of women performing hard rock and heavy metal than any other country with significant numbers of such bands. One possible explanation might be that music in Japan is historically less gendered than Western countries, and that this dynamic has carried forward into the modern Japanese hard rock and heavy metal subcultures. One prominent example of “less gendered” is the relative lack of instrument gender–stereotyping among Japan’s historical instruments, particularly the shamisen and tsuzumi–style drums, which were performed by both men and women. Guitars are an important instrument in hard rock and heavy metal, and the gender–neutral shamisen has similarities in both shape and performance techniques. Drums are also important to rock and metal, yet despite being heavily male–encoded in the West, Japan’s traditional drums do not share this same gender encoding. A survey of mostly female Japanese rock and metal musicians found that although many are either influenced or feel a connection to Japan’s historical instruments, the only instrument that they associated with gender was the shakuhachi, a bamboo flute that does have a male stereotype. Further to this, several respondents opined that the aggressive timbre of metal was inherently masculine, thereby echoing Western stereotypes. Respondents were also unaware of the professional pedagogical roles Japanese women played in the formal introduction of Western music to Japan during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which ran counter to contemporary Western attitudes; and they were also unaware of Japan’s all–female rock bands of the mid to late 1960s. However, survey responses suggested that other factors may contribute to Japanese women performing hard rock and heavy metal. These include the wardrobes of Japanese bands, Japan’s melodic sensibilities, and Japan’s convenient livehouse culture and public transportation system.