Viv Pencz

For an underprivileged, overanxious teenager growing up in the car-theft capital of North America—aka Surrey—music was the sweetest escape. While getting ready for school, I blasted David Bowie, the Libertines, and the Smiths, stabbing pins through my clothes and squeezing into leather in juvenile imitation of the male rock stars I admired.

I felt a kindred spirit in music history’s androgynous punks. Coming of age in a woman-hating culture dominated by acts like Limp Bizkit and Eminem, I internalized and reacted to society’s strict gender roles by rejecting femininity. Instead, I embraced rock ’n’ roll’s masculinity.

I used to pore over every music magazine I could find, looking up the It bands of the day, almost all of them male-dominated. In retrospectives, influential women like Debbie Harry and the Runaways were consistently side-noted or drooled over for their visual appeal, not their talents.

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Published in the Georgia Straight as part of the International Women’s Day issue.