The Go-Go’s Jane Wiedlin says the Rock Hall’s finally noticing important female artists

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The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland has a new exhibit called Revolutionary Women in Music: Left of Center, featuring items from groundbreaking female artists across all genres of music. One of those artists is The Go-Go’s, and guitarist Jane Wiedlin has some opinions about who should be represented.

“Of course, the women from the past, right? Like Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and Aretha Franklin and then Patti Smith in the ’70s,” she tells ABC Audio. “And then, I mean, I think of The Go-Go’s in the ’80s because we were kind of a revolution.”

The exhibit is important considering the Hall of Fame’s been called out for lack of female representation in the past, something Wiedlin and her bandmates know all to well.

The Go-Go’s were inducted into the hall in 2021, but it took 15 years after they were first eligible to even be nominated. Wiedlin blames that on sexism, claiming there was one man on the nominating committee who kept them off the ballot.

“We were literally the first all-female band to play their own instruments that wrote their own songs, and that were hugely successful,” she says. “We were the first, and that alone is enough that we deserved a place in this Hall of Fame.”

But things have been getting better, with more female artists being inducted in the past few years. Wiedlin sees that, and the new exhibit, as a great example of change.

“The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, speaking of revolutionary, it is really changed. They’re noticing all the important female artists finally,” she says. “There’s not enough of us, but there are a lot of us.”

For more info on Revolutionary Women in Music: Left of Center, visit RockHall.com.