The respondents in our study agree that there are more women today taking up more diverse positions and roles in the world of heavy metal than before. This perception is as clear as much as its consequences, meaning, and future directions remain as yet uncertain. The final empirical dimension of the interview findings relates to the fact that heavy metal fans understand that, in terms of gender and other issues, there are important variations and dimensions of continuity and change in the heavy metal subculture. This finding is not surprising given the fact that heavy metal has been around for several decades and has seen trends and fashions come and go, along with demographic and other changes, while nonetheless still identifiable as a particular form of popular music culture. With respect to these differences, the following two final themes emerged from the interview data: (1) metal fans perceive that there are more and less important differences in terms of gender across the various subgenres of heavy metal; and (2) they also argue that the conditions of the heavy metal subculture are generally changing in a positive direction for women. Both men and women interviewed in our study acknowledge these variations across metal's genres and its changes over time.

Styles of Heavy Metal

Theme 7: Important differences exist across subgenres in heavy metal. The theme of consequential differences existing across metal's different subgenres (beyond their musical aspects) emerged frequently during the interviews. These differences were raised, not so much in the questions asking to address gender issues, as in the general questions about the heavy metal community. Many participants found the general questions about heavy metal and its fans hard to answer because, they said, it depended on the specific (sub) genre of heavy metal music and its associated fans and their scene. While respondents recognized a relatively uniform stereotype of the metalhead among the community's outsiders, they were quick to add that insiders are aware of the differences and disagreements among the many metalheads across various subgenres. For example, Timothy argued that a fan being accepted in heavy metal depends on the subgenre they are trying to belong to.

In this work, we present a sociological investigation of perceptions concerning the contemporary presence and reception of women in the heavy metal community. Framed in feminist perspectives of “doing gender,” this study is based on semi-structured interviews, which for comparative purposes include both men and women who self-identify as fans of heavy metal, in order to assess some of the dynamics and relevance of gender in this traditionally hypermasculine sphere of popular culture. This examination is specifically developed within the framework of the perspective of “doing gender” and relies on an original set of interview data to address specified research questions. What do metalheads themselves think about the manner in which metal women “do gender” when there are (still) relatively few, though undeniably more than before, of them around? What do heavy metal fans themselves see as the opportunities and the obstacles of the process of women claiming their place in the heavy metal (sub)culture? And, how do observed changes of the increasing presence of women in heavy metal lead the way to foster greater equality with respect to gender in this world of rock music. To address these questions, we rely on a unique data set of original interviews and, in the development and discussion of relevant themes, also develop a serious engagement with the existing relevant literature on heavy metal, popular culture, and gender.

The publication of this work as a book that is relatively brief but, we hope, also insightful, rather than in the form of either a journal article or a lengthier monograph, is fitting given the scope of our investigations. The findings of our work rely on semi-structured interviews with a relatively small sample of 20 respondents. This study therefore cannot be oriented at generalization, but is meant to illustratively show the value of our sociological perspective on gender in one area of popular culture. Our approach is most critically aimed at an in-depth qualitative strategy to empirically uncover meaning and identity of self and others in a relatively unique and surely fascinating subculture of popular music.

Applying the concept of doing gender to the world of heavy metal, a review of research in other areas of inquiry in which the notion of doing gender has been used will be helpful to situate, and develop a perspective useful for, our empirical investigations. This discussion will explain important dimensions of the homosocial form of hypermasculinity, even in societies expressly committed to gender equality, in order to advance our analysis. Specifically reviewed are examples of othering, objectification, and doing gender that have been researched in the workplace, in sports, and in a variety of more and less deviant subcultures. What these various settings have in common with the heavy metal community, we will show, is that they undeniably are, or at least traditionally were, dominated by men and hypermasculine as a result and, additionally, that they have undergone changes that today make them more gender-mixed in character than in the past. We review these issues along with a review of the relevant literature on heavy metal in order to situate our own empirical investigations.

Social Structure and Subculture: Hypermasculinity in Work and Play

The workplace and the sports world are both highly competitive social structures involving the pursuit of monetary and other rewards. With respect to workplaces historically dominated by men, research has uncovered gender issues posed by women taking up political offices, leadership positions in companies, and positions in jobs that have traditionally been defined as masculine because of the physicality and mentality that is held to be required, such as fire fighters, police officers, and the military. Women entering these hypermasculine environments have been shown to be criticized as less skilled and enterprising (Berg and Budnick 1986; Craig and Jacobs 1985; Davis et al. 2010; Guajardo 2016) and are subjected to gender marking to differentiate women's presumed aptitudes from those of men (Hauser 2011; Morgan and Martin 2006). Although parental socialization of children has been found to reproduce gender inequities in work (Platt and Polavieja 2016), gender also becomes less salient, and negative stereotypes of women decrease over time, as more and more women enter such workplaces (Huffman 2013; Lawless 2004; Rosen et al. 2003).

This study theoretically relies on feminist perspectives of gender difference that identify a threefold dynamic of othering, objectification, and doing gender. Developing the notion of othering, we build on the classic work of Simone de Beauvoir (1952) concerning the notion of woman as the Other and, extending from this groundbreaking work, Judith Butler's (1990) concept of gender performativity. In turn inspired thereby, we rely on contemporary perspectives of objectification and doing gender. We find it important to explain this intellectual lineage of our perspective as rooted in classic work before it is applied in a contemporary context in order to adequately bring out the intellectual grounding of our work. Thus, by explaining the theory of our research at some length, this chapter seeks to avoid stepping into the world of heavy metal without a disciplinary basis and an appropriate model of analysis. Instead, we apply sociological concepts of gender in our study on women in heavy metal as a necessary basis for our empirical investigations. We believe these excursions, in this chapter and the next, are also justified for this book to reach its target audiences beyond expert scholars of gender, especially devotees of music and popular culture, as well as students and others interested in learning the foundations and objectives of sociology and gender studies.

Woman as the Other

Historically, theories of the social and cultural differences between men and women focused on the biological characteristics of, and differences between, the two sexes. At one time, biological perspectives asserted that men were the superior sex because of their larger physical size and greater physical strength. Such views were also justified by philosophical and, especially, religious ideas that held that women should be submissive to men. Although there are some early historical precursors to the development of feminist thought that would break with such sociologically unsustainable ideas (Madoo Lengermann and Niebrugge 1998), it took as late as the middle of the twentieth century for feminist advances to be made in social thought. In 1949, feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir published the French-language version of her seminal work The Second Sex (de Beauvoir 1952), making her, even that recent in time, among the first to argue with great consequence that biological differences between men and women are not the cause of women's relative inequality and men's power.

A study of fan perceptions of the gender dynamics in the traditionally homosocial and hypermasculine environment of the heavy metal subculture, this work was sociologically framed on the basis of gender difference theories, specifically centered on salient gender phenomena involving othering/ gender performativity, objectification, and doing gender. The empirical research was specifically aimed at developing an interpretive understanding of attitudes about gender expressed by women and men who self-identify as metalheads. Relying on semi-structured interviews, we thereby sought to uncover the meanings metalheads themselves attach to the conditions and development of those aspects of the heavy metal subculture that relate closely to gender. Following the famous Thomas theorem that ideas are real in their consequences (Merton 1995), perceptions are far from trivial to examine. How fans feel and think about women as members of the heavy metal community will also shape how gender dynamics will develop and evolve. Our study has thus provided important empirical data concerning how and to what extent women are accepted and treated in an environment that is still— though less clearly than in the not too distant past— dominated by men.

It was a particular goal of our work to illustrate the value of applying a sociological perspective rooted in theories of gender difference in the world of heavy metal. Restricted to examining fan perceptions on women in heavy metal on the basis of the theory of doing gender, we recognize our study's limitations in not being able to generalize from the interview findings. A large-scale quantitative survey of the heavy metal community and its many sociologically relevant dimensions still remains to be done. A complementary analysis of the conduct that men engage in at metal shows, rather than treating masculinity as a background condition, would also enrich the scholarly study of gender in heavy metal.

The central sociological focus on gender in the heavy metal subculture was in the interviews addressed by means of questions concerning the position of women metalheads and the masculinity of the culture. Yet, we were also able to rely on less direct ways to estimate the significance of gender by identifying and differentiating men and women among the respondents to see how their gender might affect certain otherwise non– gender-related answers. Additionally, separate attention was devoted to asking questions about moshing and flashing as two relatively common practices at (some) heavy metal shows that are forms of fan conduct with obvious gender connotations. How do metalheads perceive of these practices today as women are increasingly taking up more equal roles in the heavy metal culture? This chapter will show what role, according to metalheads themselves, the issue of gender in heavy metal plays today, and if women do, can, and/ or should mosh (as the men of metal do) and whether they do, can, and ought to flash (for the pleasure of men).

Being Woman in Heavy Metal

Two central themes emerged in the interviews with both men and women respondents with respect to the relevance of gender and the status of women in heavy metal: (1) there is a special need as a woman in heavy metal to prove oneself; and (2) women metalheads, more than men, have to rely on physical markers or symbols to emphasize that they too are fans of the genre and belong to the subculture.

Theme 3: Women in heavy metal face a special need to prove themselves. The theme of women metalheads having to prove themselves as members of the heavy metal community jumped out from the interviews as among the most prevalent findings of our study. This finding readily conforms to our perspective of heavy metal as a homosocial environment that is dominated by men. But it is additionally noteworthy to observe that the interview respondents, both the women and the men, are themselves also aware of this gender issue. Explicitly asked if the metal scene was dominated by men and hypermasculine in nature, almost all participants unequivocally answered in the affirmative.

To address the introduced issues of gender in the heavy metal subculture, the empirical component of this book relies on interviews with 10 women and 10 men who identify as fans of heavy metal. In keeping with the subjectivist approach of our examination, we did not apply an external standard to establish who qualifies as a fan of heavy metal, but instead let the respondents make that determination themselves. Because the focus of our work is on perceptions concerning women in the metal community, it is important to note that the interviews were conducted by the first author of this book, a woman, who herself also participates in the world of metal, a genre of music the second author has been involved with since the transformation from hard rock to heavy metal from the late 1960s onwards. The interviews were conducted with approval from the Institutional Review Board at the University of South Carolina, and both authors successfully passed required training for research involving human subjects.

It goes without saying that the small sample size of the interviews cannot lay claim the criteria of a random selection of research subjects upon which generalizable conclusions could be reached to a broad population. However, by selecting an equal number of men and women, we are able to reach conclusions on the critical role that gender plays in the opinions of heavy metal fans about their favorite music community. Furthermore, as our study is oriented at an adequate understanding of subjective experiences rather than an explanation of objective conditions, the findings derived from the interviews are illustrative of relevant issues in the sociology of gender and the dynamics of doing gender to bring out subjective but relevant meaning (Westmarland 2001).

Interviews

Because of the focus on the evolving status of women in a traditionally masculine world, an equal number of 10 men and 10 women were purposely selected to be interviewed. Importantly, we hereby do not rely on sex rather than gender as categories of selection, let alone address the question of the relationship between gender identity and biological sex.

• Age:

• Race:

• Sex/ gender:

• How long have you been a metal fan?

• What made you become a fan of this particular genre?

• What are some of your favorite bands?

• How many (metal) concerts have you been to?

• What does it mean to you to be a real metal fan?

• What are, according to you, the main characteristics of a metal fan?

• How does a fan become accepted into the group in your opinion?

• How would you describe the metal fan base as a group overall?

• How would you describe interactions between metal fans at shows?

• How would you describe the interactions in a mosh pit?

• Would you consider the heavy metal fan culture as a whole to be dominated by men or overly masculine?

• Do you think your gender (as a man/ woman) has affected your acceptance into the group? How?

• When a woman flashes at a concert, how do you think that affects her status?

• When a woman moshes at a concert, how do you think that affects her status?

• Do you think it is generally harder (or not) for a woman to be accepted as a metal fan than for a man?

• Is there any other information you would like to share with me?

Turning to the first set of empirical results from the interviews, this chapter explores the self-ascribed status of the heavy metal fan as involving an allencompassing identity and lifestyle. This finding pertains to the broadest themes revealed by the research data inasmuch as the study participants apply these characteristics to themselves and to other fans in the heavy metal subculture, regardless of gender or any other differentiating categories. As such, these data reveal the extent and manner in which being a fan of heavy metal, the music, and the subculture involves an overall lifestyle and identity. In the interviews, two such broad themes emerged: (1) being a metalhead is a passion; and (2) a sharp distinction is drawn between the insiders of the heavy metal subculture and its outsiders.

The Metal Self

Theme 1: Heavy metal is a passion. Interview respondents often used the word “passion” to describe their participation in the heavy metal community. Using such a strongly emotional term demonstrates that being a metalhead is, to the fans of the musical genre, an important part of their overall identity, not just a matter of a musical preference. Being a metalhead is “a big part of who I am,” as William stated, and involves, in Steve's words, an “emotional connection to the music.” It was especially striking that the word passion was repeatedly used in response to a wide variety of interview questions, both by men and women participants alike.

When asked to describe the heavy metal community in general terms and what it means to be a (“real”) metal fan, the interviews showed that it was treated as a given by most all respondents that being a fan of heavy metal revolved around “the music,” “the sound,” “loud, distorted guitar,” and “the show,” as several respondents stated plainly. But it was telling that many participants explicitly spoke of this enjoyment of music in terms of a passion. For example, Susan and Robert described metal fans in almost identical terms as, respectively, “passionate about their music” and “passionate about your views.” Pam in her response to the same question about the general characteristics of metal fans said, “You have to truly listen to the music and understand the passion that comes with the music and understand the meaning of songs.”

Presenting a sociological study of perceptions on women in the subculture of heavy metal music on the basis of interviews with self-identified fans of the genre, this study is aimed at accurately and usefully describing and portraying what members of the metal community themselves think and feel in their own terms. Rather than examining the (objective) structures of the dynamics and stratification of gender in the heavy metal culture, we develop an interpretive model of various aspects of (subjective) identity of self and (intersubjective) understanding of others in the heavy metal community, with a special focus on questions of gender. Such a perspective oriented at hermeneutic understanding, laying bare subjective meaning, can count on a long and proud tradition in the social sciences, stretching back to the very foundations of the discipline, most notably the work of Max Weber (1949), and enjoying continued popularity and recognition until today. Critically, we will also show that such interpretive work can only be sociologically relevant if it is contextualized within an appropriate theoretical framework (Habermas 1970). As this study will reveal, this methodology sets a sociological investigation often apart from other work that is not disciplinarily guided.

It will be more than useful to bring out, from the start, what this book can and cannot do. This work is not conceived of, nor meant to be, a study in the relatively young field that is nowadays referred to as “metal music studies,” “metal scholarship,” and “heavy metal studies” (Brown 2011; Gardenour Walter et al. 2016; Spracklen et al. 2011). Of course, we do hope our work can offer relevant insights and would not wish to deny that this variably labeled area of study does not also contain sociological and otherwise disciplinary work, or that it would not have produced interesting studies. In fact, as we will show throughout this book, we have learned much from the relevant literature on heavy metal to situate our own investigations (Chapter 3) and with which we will also engage in terms of the implications for the study of central questions of gender, feminism, and popular culture (Chapter 8).

1. Wittgenstein's philosophical purpose vis-à-vis the sceptic in OC is a matter of dispute. He has variously been held to refute scepticism, by showing it is self-defeating; to reveal the truth in scepticism and to offer an accommodation with it; and to diagnose the misconceptions that underlie sceptical doubt, which does not itself constitute a refutation of scepticism but which opens up the way to our liberating ourselves from its philosophical grip. These three approaches to interpreting the remarks collected in OC do not, I’m sure, amount to an exhaustive classification of the interpretations put forward in the secondary literature. However, they do at least represent three importantly distinct ways of responding to scepticism that have been attributed to Wittgenstein, and this invites the question whether, on any of these interpretations, Wittgenstein's notes contain the makings of a philosophically satisfactory response to philosophical scepticism.

2. It may seem, prima facie, that the interpretation that offers the best hope of a philosophically satisfactory response to scepticism is one that holds that Wittgenstein's remarks contain a demonstration that scepticism is self-refuting. This approach promises to show that there simply is no intelligible doubt that needs to be removed before our ordinary knowledge claims can count as legitimate. Avrum Stroll defends an interpretation along these lines. He argues that Wittgenstein's remarks present a non-conventional and unique form of foundationalism. The idea is that the foundations of human knowledge do not themselves belong to the category of things that are known. The propositions that belong to the foundation are called ‘hinge propositions’, and they are exempt from epistemic evaluation. Our attitude towards what lies at the foundation of knowledge is a form of non-epistemic certainty, a form of sureness, which, Stroll claims, is not the product of ratiocination but ‘is something primitive, instinctual, or animal’, a way of acting that ‘derives from rote training in communal practices’ (Stroll 1994: 157). By means of training in communal practices, we inherit a picture of the world, which is expressed not merely in how we think about the world but in how we live and act; our picture of the world constitutes the framework within which all ordinary doubt and enquiry, all ordinary confirmation and disconfirmation of belief, take place.