LISA L. RHODES "ELECTRIC LANDLAND" on WOMEN IN ROCK N ROLL INCLUDING GROUPIES

That picture on the cover of the book isn't Lisa, but a famous Groupie at the time. 

She has the look of someone who knows the score and has seen it all.

ELECTRIC LADYLAND, WOMEN and ROCK CULTURE, 1965-1975 by

Lisa L. Rhodes, who was part of the scene as a singer and made her own album, takes on the question of the role of women in popular music during the early explosion of Rock along with the sexual revolution, in an interesting book, and one for my library. 

To do so she looked at how women in music were portrayed by the media, in particular in Rolling Stone Magazine, as male journalists quoted the musicians and singers and others looked at women's sexuality in old, sexist ways.  About half of her book is about Groupies, how they were defined in the media, Time Magazine also having published an early article about them because they were considered to be a phenomena.

Some of you will think "Why did they let themselves get used?"  Others may think, "Why didn't I run away with the band?"

Page XI

"Another reason to study rock women stems from the fat that between 1965 and 1975 gender roles were in flux in America and these women were in the front lines of the gender wars of the late 1960's and early 1970's.  For example, by redefining what it mean to be a female musician or write, these women were helping to change perceptions about women in general.  The groupies, with their freewheeling sexuality, were also helping to reinterpret what it meant to be a sexually active woman in the music scene, as well as the role of girlfriends, lover, wife, and whore.  The activities of all these women helped to establish gender roles as they exist in America today."

Page XIV

"I chose rock music because it conveys power and being a woman in our society offers us precious little of that commodity." ... Performing music at loud volume means different things to women than it does to men.  As women we are (usually) told all our lives in subtle and not so subtle ways to be quiet, at least more quiet than the men around us.  For women to take center stage, literally, and draw attention to themselves through the employment of loud volume is thus a truly liberating act..."

Rhodes also takes on these: Did the 1960's have its own moral code, as what is considered pedophilia now is viewed by some as sexual experimentation?  Did adult women Groupies basically become slaves to men they idolized or where they liberated hero worshipers?

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