The Struggles of Female Metalheads

Music is a supposed tool for unity. There are a number of music genres for choice but, there’s just one genre that is more prone to judgment – metal and the genre’s fans, metal-heads. Full disclosure, for metalhead ladies, the judgment is more severe. I always ask myself why is it that people think that metal is not meant for ladies. Funny, I mean come on we all have ears and ‘headbangable’ heads.

It has taken me almost 2 months to write this article. Majorly because I had to take sometime to get over a very disturbing incident that took place at The Alchemist during Nairobi Metal Festival. Normally, a moshpit is a fun and stress relieving place, for most metalheads but, no. Some individuals decided to turn the moshpit into a sexual harassment pit and  when asked about it they even threatened  to do something worse to the females next time. Which got me thinking, aren’t  ladies  supposed to be in the moshpit or is metal only meant for the lads? I  had a discussion with a couple of metalhead ladies and it seems we all have had similar experiences.

A while back, there was the ”my dress my choice” campaign, that honestly doessn’t seem to apply to metalhead ladies; apparently, we cannot dress up and apply make up like the metal queens we are in peace. People out here give us suggestive stares – one would think we have shit(sic) all over our bodies. Some even go to the extent of saying we are dressed like “devil’s” children.

What hurts the most is the fact that our love for metal is always associated with mental issues and depression. Which is really disturbing, because listening to awesome music (full of guitar riffs and drums), doesn’t mean that it might be because one is going crazy or dealing with psychological issues.

Being labelled a satanist is  also a very common con. A number of ladies have confessed been labelled that by neighbours, friends, colleagues and even relatives. Which a tad judgmental, especially to very religious metal heads – like myself.  That is very heartbreaking.

Another struggle is finding love outside the metal scene, non- metal-heads( for lack of a better description) men fail to understand the level of awesome in these ladies that they would rather dump instead. Mostly under the assumption that meatlheads are drug and sex addicts so there’s no way one can date such a person

It would be swell if people took time to at least attempt to understand that metal is just a genre like any other and metalheads are human beings, who should be treated with equal love as fans of other genres. I can only imagine half of  what some of them go through; imagine getting weird looks everywhere you go, people talking smack about you and calling you bad names, being avoided like a plague. This thing sure hurts.

I wrote this article hoping to create awareness and let all the metalhead ladies know that they are awesome human beings.

Metal is music is music created and produced for everyone, and the idea that metal is too strong genre a for ladies beats me and it’s the most ridiculous thing for any human being to say – that I have heard so far. The male metalheads should give the ladies respect in that moshpit. Consequently, everyone will have a good time since the moshpit is a place where we have fun and it should not be an uncomfortable place. As for my fellow lady metalheads – continue enjoying your metal! Do not mind what others say.

FYI; this is something that is also happening to ”boychild”.

I wrote this article to let all the ladies know that we have and are going through all this together and it is something that we can ignore and move on with our lives but, if you are having hard time dealing with it you can always holla at your  girl.