Female Rockers - 'The Runaways' Legacy

Breeanna Hare, special correspondent to CNN, has written a great article entitled "Where are the modern-day 'Runaways'?" She writes that women have come a long way in the music industry to be regarded on the same footing with male rock stars, however at times it still appears to be a bit of a struggle to be taken seriously.

To be honest, I had never heard of 'The Runaways' until last summer when Kristen Stewart (she of Twilight fame) was selected to play Joan Jett in a biopic featuring the first all-female rock band. As a child of the 1980s I was familiar with Joan Jett ('I Love Rock and Roll') but never knew that she began the first female rock band. My first introduction to female rockers were Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Tyler, Melissa Etheridge and of course Deborah Harry of Blondie - as for bands, The Bangles and The Go-Go's.

The movie, 'The Runaways' is a great and gritty portrayal of what it was like in the mid-1970s for women to be in control of their own destiny - something which was quite new for the male-dominated music industry. One of my favourite lines of the movie occurs when Joan takes a guitar lesson only to be told by the instructor that women do not play electric guitars. Think this may have been the first and last guitar lesson she took then taught herself to play.

As Belinda Carlisle of The Go Go's sang "We've got the beat, yah, we've got the beat!" Rock-on sisters.