There are some strong female performers out there. But the industry's pre-occupation with the packaging of how a woman looks has gone completely the other way, back to almost the 60s, early 70s.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There have never been so many women in the music industry, but they're doing ballads and pop. Where's the new Joan Jetts and the Wanda Jacksons and the Debbie Harrys, all these strong women? I wanna be the woman that rocks.
The Seventies seemed like this really open time. There were a lot of strong women characters deciding what kind of artists they wanted to be.
Don't get me wrong, I've seen some very excellent women musicians.
It's a huge change from when I started in the 1960s, but what is really impressive is that the number of ladies on set, the women working on set is a huge percentage. There used to be no women. It was just the leading lady's mother, perhaps the hairdresser and the makeup person.
There are thousands of good-looking women out there. Longevity for a heroine doesn't come only with good looks: talent matters.
We showed the industry that female artists could attract the same audiences as the big male stars.
I think the culture today is very, very different from what it was in the '60s, and I feel lucky that I grew up at a time when I had these very strong female role models.
If you look back in history of the women who are most memorable and most stylish, they were never the followers of fashion. They were the ones who were unique in their style, breakers of the rules. They were authentic, genuine, original. They were not following the trends.
Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists.
There's no question that many more women artists are showing worldwide now than they were when I was a young woman, and that's really great.