It was 1964 and singer Genyusha Goldie Zelkowitz had a problem. The all-girl band she formed in 1962 with drummer Ginger Bianco, Goldie and the Gingerbreads, had a major label record contract and an upcoming Las Vegas stint but the bassist, Nancy Peterman, had just told the band that she was pregnant. Shed formed an attachment to the organist of a band theyd been performing with; things had taken their natural course. In the 1960s, birth control for unmarried women was still illegal in certain states. Roe v. Wade was not yet a glimmer in the Supreme Courts eye, and an attempt to get her an illicit procedure fell through. The situation was unsurprising, and the conclusion was unfortunate: Peterman had to leave the band.

Zelkowitz, who now goes by Genya Ravan, practically explodes with laughter remembering the incident now, 50 years later, during a phone conversation. She kept saying she was so lonely! Ravan hoots. Had I known I would have bought her a vibrator. A vibrator and a career, or a sexual partner and parenthood: Thats a choice The Beatles likely never had to make.

For Ravan, who was determined to make it in the music business, settling down wasnt an option. After forming Goldie and the Gingerbreads, she saw the branding benefits of keeping the lineup all women, to capitalize on the exotic appeal of an all-girl rock n roll band. But over the years, they lost members, and it was difficult to fill all the parts in the group with women.

A lot of the girls that were canned down the line they wanted to have a family, they wanted to have children, said Ravan. Theres no room for that here.

Womanhood used to usher women off the stage in fairly obvious, biological ways. But its 2017. Seven years ago, Pink put in a rousing performance at the American Music Awards while expecting a baby. In February of this year, Beyonc performed gravity-defying moves during a Grammy performance while pregnant with twins.

Nonetheless, pockets of the music world remain startlingly male. Our greatest pop stars today might be women , but in instrument-heavy rock indie, punk, metal and beyond the standard-issue band is still a group of three to six guys. Less common: a group of male musicians with a female vocalist, or even a female keyboardist or bassist. Least common: a band comprised primarily or entirely of female musicians.

The music internet periodically offers up listicles of all-women bands to check out, which feature a common core cast of incredible indie groups: Hinds, Ex Hex, The Prettiots, Chastity Belt, Warpaint and so on. Plenty has been written about the the chart-topping pop-rock sister group Haim , but even in a diverse musical landscape of EDM, hip-hop, pop and hybrid music, a wide variety of all-male bands still flourishes. Why is the all-female band relatively elusive?

One might be tempted to blame women as a group. Perhaps were biologically uninterested in playing electric guitar, much like advanced algebra and video games. Maybe there simply arent girls out there with the chops and dedication to succeed. But much as with mathematics and video games a closer look at the picture suggests that the problem isnt that women are rejecting rock. Its that rock is rejecting women.

But how is the music world fencing women out? Picking on the visible gatekeepers is easy, and in many ways fair: Record labels, magazines and music festivals dont tend to give women artists an equal platform. Last year, a HuffPost analysis of the gender breakdown of acts at 10 major festivals over the past five years found that the vast majority of performers were male . [A]ll-male acts make up the overwhelming majority of festival lineups, ranging from 66 percent of all performers (Outside Lands and Governors Ball) to 93 percent (Electric Zoo), HuffPost Womens Editor Alanna Vagianos concluded. An LA Times piece on Coachellas specific problems with women noted that, at the time it was written, only one female act had ever headlined the festival , out of over 40 headliners in its history.

Music media seems little better. In 2016, KQED Arts pointed out in December, exactly zero women made the cover of Rolling Stone no Beyonc, no Rihanna, no Alessia Cara, no Hayley Williams. Women who do snag coverage by major outlets routinely see their musical chops downplayed in favor of their sex appeal , or wind up relegated to special womens issues or listicles.

The problem, though, starts way before the point when the organizers of Coachella or Bonnaroo are scouting acts, and before magazines are picking out cover models. This isnt an excuse for their paltry lineups of female artists; its just to say that there are other pressures guiding tastemakers toward men and guiding women to give up rock stardom.

Bands made up of all women are rare not because of a lack of talent, dedication or interest, but because women have been siphoned out of the pipeline at nearly every step of the way.