50 Years Of She-Punk, And Contributions To Documenting Hidden Women Musicians

I registered the words she-punk in 2018 when it became apparent that the words were being exploited commercially without proper acknowledgement of the fact that they originated with me. In academia this is called plagiarism.

You might not believe it, but the term didn't exist until 2015 when Gina Birch and me proposed a documentary idea to Andy Linehan at The British Library, followed up by a commission to show the work-in-progress of Stories From The She-Punks: Music With A Different Agenda at The British Library's celebration of 40 Years of Punk in 2016. He asked us for a title and I thought of it the same day- a riposte against the tabloid term of the time, 'punkette' (yeuch) which I'd had a few conversations with, including with Zillah Ashworth of Rubella Ballet (an east London punk band), who had also made a film about punk women, She's a Punk Rocker. The difference is that ours focuses primarily on instrumentalists, with interviews with many of the women I'd spoken to for my book The Lost Women of Rock Music- female musicians of the punk era.

Here's a link to the event in 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20201108112648/https://www.bl.uk/events/stories-from-the-she-punks

Here's a link to the film, in case you haven't seen it yet- it's very DIY, very easy to dip into, and features women from those first punk bands from lots of different places in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zki9nj8tjZA&t=1393s

Here's a link to Zillah's film too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHoJHMV0ybA&t=3s

The term she-punk seems to have entered the vernacular, which is a good thing (I think), but isn't it ironic that a woman who has spent a lifetime making 'invisible' women instrumentalists visible (not just punks, but also engineers and producers) is being rendered invisible ten years later? 

You might be interested in this book if women instrumentalists in punk bands are an inspiration to you (I do sometimes have these books at my gigs):

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-lost-women-of-rock-music/helen-reddington/9781845539573

And this one if you're interested in why it's important that we have female sound engineers and producers as well as men (incidentally, that sound wave is someone saying 'she's at the controls'):

https://www.waterstones.com/book/shes-at-the-controls/helen-reddington/9781781796511

However, I am delighted that women punk musicians are being brought to the forefront in the anniversary celebrations: hats off to everyone involved, then and now.