ABSTRACT
The rock world of the late 1960s/early 1970s was a decidedly male-dominated one, where it often seemed as if the aggressive attitudes of groups like the Rolling Stones allowed little agency for women outside the thrill-seeking adventures of groupies.1 One of the first articles to address the contradictory allure and repulsion of rock music from a woman’s perspective, “Cock Rock” originally appeared in the New York-based underground feminist publication Rat magazine.2 The article is cast in a decisively downbeat tone, no doubt influenced by the passing of one of rock’s few female icons, Janis Joplin (1943-1970), who had died from a heroin overdose mere days before the essay was published. Like many of the writings in Rat, “Cock Rock” appeared without an attributed author, an anonymity that served to reflect the communal solidarity of the women’s movement itself. The article was later anthologized, however, under the pseudonym of Susan Hiwatt, a playful allusion to a British line of guitar amplifiers favored by groups like the Who and Pink Floyd.3
