Our Favourite All Female Bands 2026

How many all-female bands are you into? Rock bands composed entirely of women are too thin on the ground. There’s an imbalance there that most definitely needs correcting, and today’s blog aims to highlight some of the fearless and hard-rocking women who’ve led that charge for change.

It takes a while for attitudes to ‘update’ about some things, and there’s a long way to go before women in bands who turn up at venues aren’t often viewed as wives or girlfriends, or worse, asked if they know how to set up their own equipment. Every musician, technician and attendee can play a part in moving the world into a collectively fairer place, but for now, let’s focus on the positive!

Each of the following bands are populated entirely by women. There are no men in any of these bands, as far as I can see. I’ve been strict here, so that includes extra touring members, too! Again, this is as far as my research has brought me, because I suppose every band has a history unknown to us. That said, each of the bands in today’s blog is bringing significant music to the world, and are occupying their space as they see fit, as they should.

That said, there are a lot of bands that are almost fully female, with perhaps just one male member on board. That excludes them from the main blog (rules are rules!) but I’ve created a special section at the end for them, because rules are made to be broken, are they not?

Enjoy the blog, and remember to check out any bands that are new to you!

The band from which sprang the iconic Joan Jett! The Runaways were almost the blueprint for a bad-ass girl rock band, with songs like Cherry Bomb dominating the US charts in the mid-to-late 70s. Their energy was combustible, and the group split before they reached international megastardom, but several members have remained in the spotlight since. Aside from Jett (who was one of the first women to start her own independent record label), co-guitarist Lita Ford went on to enjoy a lengthy solo career (managed by Sharon Osbourne, no less) and bassist Micki Steele joined The Bangles.

Are the Go-Go’s better known for two of their members’ subsequent solo careers? Possibly so since one of them is Jane Weidlin, whose Rush Hour is a stone cold classic, and the other is Belinda Carlisle, who has more hit songs that you can shake a stick at!

That said, the Go-Go’s themselves were a potent force of pop-rock in the late 70s, and certainly paved a path for subsequent bands. Tunes like We Got the Beat and Our Lips are Sealed sound as fresh today as they did back in 1981 LA!

The Bangles were like a 1980s hit machine! Singer Susanna Hoffs and co delivered a brace of great songs, including Walk Like an Egyptian, Manic Monday (written by Prince) and their best known song, Eternal Flame.

Another pop-rock all female band from Los Angeles (this seems to have been the place!), The Bangles were part of a little-known scene known as the Paisley Underground scene, which looked back on the perfect pop of the 60s and moving the sound and sensibility to 1980s LA. This maybe explains the retro Gretsch and Rickbacker guitars, and you can definitely hear the influence in the tight songwriting and multiple-part harmonies of Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson.

L7 married energetic, punky rock with a confrontational, empowering feminism years before even the Riot Grrrl movement began. The band started in 1985 in Los Angeles by Suzanne Gardner and Donita Sparks, though it would be the early 90s before they hit the culture in a big way. Signing to Sub Pop, recording with Butch Vig and becoming buoyed by the grunge movement put them on the map, even though they’d been around longer.

 L7 are definitely trailblazers for all-female bands looking to play their own way with no compromises in attitude or integrity. They expressed things that only men seemed allowed to do, and changed the dialogue forever after. Their engagement with politics - particularly in creating the Rock For Choice movement - made them a huge influence on subsequent generations of musicians.

Sleater-Kinney are a touchstone for all-female indie rock with intelligence and a sting in its tail! Like L7, Sleater-Kinney are known for their feminist perspective and progressive politics, which are all intrinsic to their art. Fronted by Corin Tucker on vocals and Carrie Brownstein on guitar, Sleater-Kinney were one of the original Riot Grrrl bands, a scene that formed in early 90s Washington state around groups of all-female bands whose feminist stances broke new ground in alternative rock scenes. 

Brownstein had this to say of the band’s perspective: "Sleater-Kinney are brave enough and strong enough to make a difference and get the word out”. Journalist Greil Marcus called them one of the essential rock groups of the early 2000s. Sleater-Kinney split up in 2006 but regrouped 8 years later and have released a number of records since.

Brazilian thrash metal group Nervosa have been through a large number of members over the years, but they’ve all been female and they’ve all been ferocious! Frontwoman Prika Amaral has been in the band since the beginning, and current lead guitarist Helena Kotina has been with them since 2021.

Nervosa have 5 albums out and are constantly touring, so look out for them on the bill at your next metal festival and show them some support!

Mexican rockers The Warning are one of a current tide of exciting all-female bands who are showing just how powerful three females on stage can be. The Monterrey-based trio have been together as a band since 2013, but that’s only half of the story. They’ve been together a lot longer than that…as sisters! All three members of The Warning are the Villarreal Vélez sisters, which must make life on the road either really easy or really difficult…

Fierce metallers Kittie first came onto the scene during the nu metal years. Sisters Morgan and Mercedes Lander are the band’s nucleus, and only two remaining original members. Hailing from Ontario, Canada, Kittie are another all-female band who were signed to a major label but subsequently decided to handle their affairs independently. Their heavy, abrasive sound features both clean and growled vocals, and in fact the band were one of the first female bands to pioneer the sound.

There isn’t a lot of room in this blog for tribute bands with a gimmick, but somehow, The Iron Maidens are an exception. As you may have guessed, they are an all-female Iron Maiden tribute band, complete with feminised versions of the OG band member’s names.

Another Los Angeles-based band, the Iron Maidens have actually been on the go for 25 years, and had Nita Strauss in their ranks during their earlier years. Current guitarist Nikki Stringfield (Davina Murray instead of Dave Murray) even has her own signature Schecter guitar, so the industry is giving them some well-earned respect.

Portland, Oregon’s Blackwater Holylight exist in that artistic space somewhere between shoegaze and stoner metal, which as it turns out is a good place to be! Though now based in Los Angeles, their early days in the Northeast informed their hazy dark sound. Their all-female lineup is intentional, deliberately creating an all-female space to create and conduct business.

Frontwoman Allison ‘Sunny’ Faris says this about the decision: “Even though I started the band wanting to work with women, it was never about being a feminist. It was never about putting ourselves onstage to say ‘fuck you’ to men”. In fact it was more born out of a creative desire: “...a curiosity about how my process could be different playing with women and how my own vulnerability could be sort of nurtured with women”.

So, those bands were a collection of some great all-female bands. Now, as promised, a short honour list of amazing bands that have mixed-gender lineups that lean heavily on the side of female members. Loads of bands have great female frontpeople but are otherwise populated by males. Female fronted bands are awesome, but that’s not what today’s list is about. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good one…

• Hole
• Fleetwood Mac
• Throwing Muses
• Heart
• The Breeders
• My Bloody Valentine
• Boris
• Mono
• Nashville Pussy
• The Corrs
• Tegan & Sara

So, that’s my selected roundup of how things look for all-female bands. What have I learned? A few things…firstly, that most female-fronted bands only have one female member (from Garbage to Paramore, No Doubt to Arch Enemy etc etc) and that all-female bands are pretty rare in the rock world. 

Secondly, I learned that Los Angeles looks like the place to be for women in rock, since the majority of today’s bands either hailed from there or moved there. 

Apart from that, I feel like I covered it at the beginning: there are thousands of bands populated entirely by men and very few that are all-female. Hopefully this is something that’s becoming an old, out of date concept, but here we still are talking about it, and you've just seen and heard how much excellent music is the result of such collaborations. 

So yeah, work to be done on all fronts, but how good are all of these bands?