#shes not part of the riot grrrl movement but she IS a trailblazer for women in punk

[hoodienanami]

Pauline Murray, lead singer of Penetration showing off her loyalty to the Sex Pistols with a God Save The Queen pin (picture by Derek Ridgers)

like many British kids in 1976, Pauline was inspired to form her own punk band after seeing the Sex Pistols preform. she was also inspired to start thinking more about politics because of the lyrics of the Sex Pistols' songs

Lyrically [Johnny Rotten] was speaking about things that you’d never heard before, saying ‘God save the queen, she ain’t a human being’ – you’d have been hung for heresy like a hundred years ago to put that sort of thing out into the public. Pretty Vacant, all of that, it just seemed to reflect what was going on at the time, people were very complacent. I’d never really heard, I mean I’d heard a lot of music up to that point, but I’d never really heard anybody spout those sorts of lyrics with that sort of anger, and the anger was like a driving force. So politically, up to that point, I hadn’t really thought that much about politics even though it ruled our lives. You know, you’re just a young person getting on with your life, but it made you aware, because it was so anti-establishment, it made you more aware of what the establishment actually was. It was very inspiring and eye-opening and empowering. Obviously, I’d never have been in a band had that not have happened. - Pauline Murray

Pauline's sense of empowerment extended to her gender as well. she's one of the many people to point out that the punk movement in England was one of the first attempts in music history to put women on equal footing with men

I was a member of the band, I was doing my own thing, writing my own lyrics and women didn’t really do that prior to that. Yes, you’ve got your Joni Mitchells and all that, but in the mid-70s women were just backup singers and had to look pretty. With the punk thing it was the opposite, you didn’t want to look pretty, well personally – I mean you’ve got people like Debbie Harry who looked very pretty anyway – but from our point of view you wanted to dress down in a way. You didn’t want to look pretty, you didn’t want to be seen as a sex symbol, you wanted to be seen for what you were actually doing – for the music and what it actually was. [...] If women wanted to take out a loan, single women, they had to get their father’s signature, and that’s 1975, that sort of tells you where women were at at that point in time. I mean it was starting to change but, as I say, people like The Slits and what have you, they weren’t pandering to being sex symbols, let’s put it that way. They were more interested in expressing themselves and they were part of the punk movement. I think the men involved in the bands were… I was going to say fairly protective of the women, but I think you were actually there just doing your thing and having to look after yourself, in reality. - Pauline Murray