Joan Jett is one of punk's earliest feminist figures who paved the way for women's representation in the scene, and continued to remain active in its radical underground during the Nineties, when she linked with the uncompromisingly feminist Bikini Kill as their producer. Later this year, she and her Blackhearts bandmates are set to tour stadiums with Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Poison — three quintessential hair-metal bands who've been accused of misogynistic lyrics and behavior for decades — so Jett was asked by Rolling Stone if she's at all fazed by that potential conflict of beliefs.
"It's very prevalent, all over rock and roll," she says of misogyny. "Look, all I can do as the woman I am is go out there and show an alternative view and do it my way. If I had to weed out every band you thought was problematic, I mean, there wouldn't be very many left. And I think everyone's being a little … Chill out, it's music."
When she was asked whether she thinks misogyny in rock is less prevalent now than it was in the 1980s, Jett had an interesting answer. "That's a good question. The bands I listened to weren't necessarily at all misogynistic, but I'm talking about guys like Fugazi.
"I would say [it's] probably not as misogynistic [now], just because of their openness to getting criticized about it, because you get creamed online and people seem to care about that. That doesn't mean that it changes who they are, so maybe that's dangerous. It goes underground. But I think things are changing."
