Women's music: History and Key Facts

Women's music is a type of music "by women, for women, and about women."

Women's music focused on topics of feminism, including the unfair treatment of women by society and their families. Its lyrics focused on women's individual power, women's solidarity, and community, including lesbians.

As an offshoot of the feminist movement, the genre was referred to as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist movement and included the women's labor, civil rights, and peace movements. The movement was started by lesbian performers such as Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, and Margie Adam, African-American musicians including Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, Gwen Avery and activists such as Bernice Johnson Reagon and her group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and peace activist Holly Near. Women's music is not only associated with female performers but also all female workers in the industry, including studio musicians, producers, sound engineers, technicians, cover artists, distributors, promoters, and festival organizers.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Women's music by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.