Women in music today: talented, persistent, and lots of cajónes
In the Golden Age of American Folk songs, frequently pegged at 1958-1965 (although some people extend it to 1975), women made up 10-15% of the Billboard top 100. Women did enter the ranks of the top touring acts, but almost exclusively as “girl groups” like the Supremes, The Shirelles, The Ronettes, and The Shangri-Las. Solo singers and women-fronted bands were few and far between on tour and on the charts.
Today, women occupy about 38% of the Billboard top 100, and in touring acts, Taylor Swift topped the list and Pink and Madonna were not far behind in 2024. So far, Beyonce is the top-grossing touring act of 2025, and she is joined in the top ten by Shakira and Pink.
How did women in the Golden Age of American Folk singing and the Summer of Love only fill 10%-15% of the top 100 slots and were almost non-existent on the tour charts, move to a woman being the top-grossing tour act of all time, and women holding down over 1/3 of the spots on the Billboard 100?
Aside from technology and demographics, I think the answer is three things: talent, persistence, and cajones…which brings me to Militia Vox.
Heavy Metal fans know Militia Vox and have seen her forcefully striding across the stage, her rich black skin sweating against her black leathers, and her operatic voice howling into a megaphone that literally shoots flames. Her latest release, “Reach,” has the energy of a small nuclear reactor and could probably power a carrier task force.
Militia Vox has talent to spare. She is a powerhouse alt-metal singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who has shattered genre and gender boundaries across the global rock landscape. Known for her electrifying presence and remarkable four-octave vocal range, Vox reigns as the fierce frontwoman of the all-female heavy metal sensation Judas Priestess and has left audiences awestruck as a solo artist and headliner for international festivals like Afropunk and Wasteland Weekend. Her unique musical fusion weaves heavy metal, goth, industrial, and cinematic soundscapes into anthems of rebellion and female autonomy, and does it with soaring vocals and images from hell, or at least from the darker part of her (and your) mind. And her spare time appears on TV, in movies, and on stage.
Launching her music journey at age eight as a concert pianist, she soon discovered rock, especially heavy metal in the form of Judas Priest. There was no stopping her. She evolved from classical piano prodigy to a defining force in the rock underground—performing with icons like Cyndi Lauper, Living Colour, Twisted Sister, L7, and even dueting with Rob Halford of Judas Priest on the hit “Push Comes to Shove”. No wonder she won the Global Music Award for Best Female Vocalist.
But this took persistence. Vox spent about a decade and a half in her adventure from classical piano to screaming rock—beginning in her childhood with classical piano, crossing over through college bands in her late teens and early twenties, and arriving at full “metal queen” status in New York’s gritty scene by the early 2000s and beyond. In addition to The Judas Priestess band ,she also played in and started other bands like Disciples of Astaroth, Swear on Your Life, and played with Taylor Dayne, Cyndi Lauper, Nancy Sinatra, Living Things, Razorlight, and The Paul Shaffer Band. The road from the graceful Steinway to the flaming megaphone was neither straight nor easy. But she stuck with it, eventually appearing at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and performing off-Broadway.
And finally, Vox has cajónes, an admittedly odd quality to assign to a successful woman (or any woman), but when it comes to courage, she has ‘em. From starting a heavy metal tribute band and risking a lot of male backlash (she eventually played with Judas Priest’s Rob Halford), to standing onstage with her Priestesses in front of some of the wildest (and drunkest) audiences in popular music, to singing with a megaphone that at any minute could catch her hair on fire, nothing daunts her.
She is not alone in the cajónes department. Pink sings while swinging 60 feet above her audience – without a net. The three sisters of The Warning faced a festival crowd of 400,000 when they were barely of legal age without flinching, and got cheers. Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” not only pioneered her genre but also fought for civil rights and women’s rights. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a Black woman who fused gospel and electric guitar to pioneer rock and roll at a time when neither her race nor her gender was welcome on the big stage; Dolly Parton, who refused to give up her songwriting credit to Elvis and built a business empire; to Sinéad O’Connor, who risked her career by spotlighting injustice on national television; or any of the women in Mexico like Conexión Divina, Vivir Quintana, or Lila Downs who are pushing their way into the male-dominated world of regional music. And of course, there is Taylor Swift in everything from leaving the country world to entering the football world to, well, you name it.
So, when you see a live concert or stream Taylor Swift, or Pink, or The Warning, or Lila Downs, or of course Militia Vox, remember the woman making you vibrate with music is supremely talented, stubbornly persistent and has great cajónes.
Patrik O’Heffernan
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