Surely, the lack of women into metal is more to do with the general perception of metal, how it's covered in the press (mainstream & scene), the lyrics and the fact that a lot of metal bands consist of guys singing about topics that relate to guys. This doesnt mean women cant "handle" technical or complex music. Metal is like loads of other genres in that it contains both very complex & simplistic music, only the more complex stuff in metal tends to be showy testosterone-based prog/power or the more extreme black/death end of metal which doesnt generally have a very female-positive image. Plenty of women listen to challenging classical music for example.
I deffinitely know more guys into metal than women, but the few women I know tend to actually be a lot more open-mided and listen to stuff cause they like it, rather than whether its fashionable to, because they dont care what other people think as much as men do. Esecially when it comes to elitism. By best female friend will listen to incredibly comercial pop but also metal stuff from HIM to Novembre to Children Of Bodom whereas guys I know tend to stick to 1 genre because if you listen to extreme music, it's not cool to like anything popular and vica-versa. Also, about girls fancying guys in bands: imagine virtually all metal bands had completely female lineups, just by statistics some of them would have to be pretty fit and I bet no matter how much guys might be into music for the music itself, everyone would wind up mentioning how much they fancy band members. How nice someone looked or how sexy their voice was would get people interested in bands they might have otherwise ignored. I have a mate who is really into european metal from black/death to goth and has really good taste in metal, but when there are attractive women in bands (like Tarja from Nightwish - his opinion anyway! - or Christina from Lacuna Coil) he goes on about their looks obsessively, despite the fact that I know if the music was rubbish he wouldnt be interested. Although he does have a bit of an Amy Lee obession and actually likes Evanescence, so maybe I should take that back!
I deffinitely know more guys into metal than women, but the few women I know tend to actually be a lot more open-mided and listen to stuff cause they like it, rather than whether its fashionable to, because they dont care what other people think as much as men do. Esecially when it comes to elitism. By best female friend will listen to incredibly comercial pop but also metal stuff from HIM to Novembre to Children Of Bodom whereas guys I know tend to stick to 1 genre because if you listen to extreme music, it's not cool to like anything popular and vica-versa. Also, about girls fancying guys in bands: imagine virtually all metal bands had completely female lineups, just by statistics some of them would have to be pretty fit and I bet no matter how much guys might be into music for the music itself, everyone would wind up mentioning how much they fancy band members. How nice someone looked or how sexy their voice was would get people interested in bands they might have otherwise ignored. I have a mate who is really into european metal from black/death to goth and has really good taste in metal, but when there are attractive women in bands (like Tarja from Nightwish - his opinion anyway! - or Christina from Lacuna Coil) he goes on about their looks obsessively, despite the fact that I know if the music was rubbish he wouldnt be interested. Although he does have a bit of an Amy Lee obession and actually likes Evanescence, so maybe I should take that back!
