If you follow the winding path of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's main exhibit hall to the end, past the massive faces of Elvis and Jimi Hendrix, through an altar to the Beatles, you'll find, tucked just in front of the exit and thrumming with the sheer volume of ambient music, an ode to the women of metal. "Women in Metal: You Will Know My Name" just opened this month.
"I've always been a fan of metal music," said Rock Hall Assistant Curator Haley Cronin. "There's such a feeling of community and being at home with everyone wonderful and weird."
That embrace of eccentricity, however, can be a double-edged sword for women in metal. In a male-dominated space, female metal musicians have often been tokenized or viewed as novelty acts.
"Why do we have to put the label 'female' in front of a band when we don't put that same label for men?" Cronin said. "People don't think that woman can embody these heavier themes or this darkness."
"Women in Metal" is divided into three distinct periods. The Risktakers (1969 - 1995) begins with an electric guitar from Lita Ford, who got her start in the all-female rock band The Runaways before breaking out as a solo glam metal act in the 1980s.
"The queen of metal in America," Cronin said.
On the European side, a metal-studded ensemble from German singer Doro Pesch features black leather adorned with appliqué and frills. Between fronting heavy metal band Warlock and a string of successful solo albums, Pesch has been a fixture of the scene for more than 40 years.
"[Ford and Pesch] really led the charge for the first women ever in the genre," Cronin said.
One example of how women had to break barriers in the industry is encapsulated by Roxy Petrucci’s drumsticks. Petrucci co-founded all-female glam metal band Vixen, who released their debut album in 1988 and eventually sold more than a million records.
“I wanted to play so hard that my hands would bleed, and they did," Petrucci said in a 2024 documentary about the 1980s hair metal scene cited in the exhibit wall text. "I just thought the harder I hit, the more they were going to take me seriously.”
You also can see a copy of Hellion's "Screams in the Night" album, released independently under a record label founded by frontwoman Ann Boleyn.
"Upon doing that and getting more into that side of the industry, [Boleyn] realized the inconsistencies of women in the industry getting terrible deals, being treated horribly," Cronin said.
Boleyn went on to get a law degree at the University of La Verne in 2007. As an attorney, she represents women in employment cases, particularly those involving sexual harassment and intimidation.
The Changemakers section (1995 - 2015) opens up the cracked door, including the rise of one of Cronin's personal heroes: Lzzy Hale, co-founder and lead singer of Halestorm. Active since 1997, the band has released a platinum-selling album and performed to sold out arenas.
What draws Cronin in, though, is Hale’s writing. Songs like “Freak Like Me,” for Cronin, push for gender and LGBTQ+ equality with lyrics expressing vulnerability and radical acceptance. Hale echoed the sentiment during her set at the exhibit’s July 10 opening reception.
"The future of metal does not belong to a specific gender. It does not belong to a specific country. It does not belong to a specific scene. It belongs to anyone brave enough to create something honest, powerful and true," Hale said in her speech.
That bravery is displayed firsthand in “Woman in Metal,” with handwritten lyric drafts for Halestorm songs "Broken Doll" and "Darkness Always Wins.”
"You get to see every artistic moment of writing a song, the mess-ups, the flubs, when they finally figure out the right verse, the right phrasing," Cronin said.
While earlier women might have looked to male forerunners (Lita Ford, for instance, picked up certain guitar techniques from Jimi Hendrix), the final Stormbreakers section (2015 - present) captures the diversity of ways women have entered and played with metal songwriting.
Current artists often pivot from other genres or intermingle. Industrial metal singer Poppy was once a viral YouTube star who dabbled in electropop and reggae, while Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox joined Megan Thee Stallion in 2024 for rap metal track “TYG.” The exhibit’s centerpiece is a triptych of white gowns — statuesque layers of torn, singed gossamer fabric — worn by The Warning at the Latin Grammy Awards, a trio of hard rock-playing sisters from Mexico.
"Some metal fans are probably like, 'Oh you're tainted now because you've touched this genre or that genre,'" Cronin said. "Women in metal are the ones that are kind of leading the charge of moving away from thinking like that."
The industry's response has been both substantial and gradual. Hale became first female winner of the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Grammy in 2012 with Halestorm (when the categories where briefly combined). Nearly a decade later, Poppy became the first female solo act nominated for Best Metal Performance in 2021.
"That's a very clear tell of how the landscape has changed from the beginning, of Lita Ford and Doro Pesch first risking their careers to do metal just on a wing and a prayer," Cronin said. "And again, we still have ways to go."
But the overall curatorial approach is to keep it light.
"We don't want to harp on those stories so much as this institution, because we're here to more celebrate, even though that is such a big part of the story," Cronin said.
Behind it all, the beating heart of the exhibit is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's reverent, never-wash-my-signed-face groupie attitude. Cronin gushed most about a flamethrower megaphone from Militia Vox, chatting with The Pretty Reckless frontwoman Taylor Momsen and being gifted a shirt from Ash Costello of New Years Day.
"I'm so proud that I get to finally put a spotlight on these ladies that have been lost and kind of forgotten in the industry for so long," Cronin said.
