Looking around the metal landscape these days, women are almost as plentiful as men. Gone, too, are the days of women writhing around on the floor in their videos a la Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly” to appeal to the male-dominated fan base. These days, to suggest something like that to some of the women in metal might get you a punch in the nose … or a swift kick somewhere else.
During the early to mid-1980s, though, women in heavy metal were a rarity. You had Joan Jett doing a heavy-rock style that was close, but not quite metal. Lita Ford was laying down some heavy licks, but it was still a few years before her 1988 breakthrough album Lita would blow the doors open for ladies in metal.
