I can remember when my college journalism teacher told our class that women who plan to have careers in journalism shouldn't take their husband's last name if they ever get married, because readers associate with certain names and will be confused if those names change. For the first time I, and many of the women in my class, realized that the world of journalism was different for women than for men.

Rock She Wrote, edited by McDonnell and Ann Powers, is a book about just that. It's a wake-up call to the world of music journalism, that women really can write about­­and understand­­ rock music just as well as men. A collection of over 60 pieces from Patti Smith, Mary Gaitskill, Ellen Willis, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, and Addicted to Noise's own Jaan Uhelszki, Rock She Wrote is a testament to the intelligence, talent, and perceptiveness of female rock journalists.

The book opens with an introduction by journalist McDonnell, who chronicles the typical life story of the woman in journalism. "There are so many entrances to the field: the dream of being the one onstage, the dream of getting the behind-the-scenes scoop, the dream of understanding the music on one's own terms. There are many exits as well. [Maybe] music starts to mean less to you," McDonnell explains, "and you pursue other interests, decide to get a real job, devote your time to your family." However, "Rock She Wrote" isn't intended as a showcase only for those women who struggled to survive, but as an inspiration for all women journalists who might otherwise give up.

The anthology is broken up into sections, like "I Am The Band," which tosses the reader headlong into the lifestyle of the woman in rock 'n' roll. Kim Gordon reflects about life on the road with Sonic Youth in "Boys Are Smelly," Uhelszki reveals her exciting night performing onstage with KISS, and Marianne Faithful describes her life with Mick Jagger and her part in writing the Rolling Stones song "Sister Morphine."

"On The Scene" includes several insightful looks into more expansive musical movements, from Lisa Robinson's piece on the Velvet Underground, and Deborah Frost's frightening "White Noise: Why Heavy Metal Rules," to Leslie Berman's travels through the South in search of the blues. Later, "Talking 'Bout a Revolution" returns to larger trends in rock, like sexism in Kennealy-Morrison's "Rock Around the Cock," and rock censorship vis-a-vis 2 Live Crew in Lisa Jones' work. The articles in this section are the most difficult to read, but are the most indicative of women's' ability to understand the meaning of music within a larger cultural structures.

Likewise, it's still important to understand the emotional and sexual aspects of rock. These too are lovingly exposed in pieces like "Boy Watching," in which Patti Smith takes on her own attraction to Bob Dylan, and another in which feminist writer Mary Gaitskill justifies her gravitation to Guns 'N' Roses singer (and outspoken misogynist) W. Axl Rose. In "Wimmin, Grrrls, Queens and Divas," women pay tribute to the female artists they admire, from Lisa Fancher's charismatic examination of the Runaways to Bell Hooks' startling look at "Madonna: Plantation Mistress or Soul Sister?" Also included here is Daisiann McLane's "feminist" article about Heart which cost her her job at Rolling Stone, and Sally Margaret Joy's tender look at Juliana Hatfield's battle with anorexia.

There are so many powerful works in Rock She Wrote, it's impossible to describe them all; it seems unfair to highlight a few while leaving others unmentioned. There is something in the book for every reader, whether male or female, black or white, fan of metal, jazz, folk, or rap. While Rock She Wrote is a collection by, about, and for women, it doesn't mean to exclude the male audience: in fact, men have as much to gain from reading it as women do, and women can benefit from the attitudes within men which this book hopes to change.

In her interview with Patti Smith, Susan Shapiro reveals a bit of what this book is truly about: "'Most of my heroes are men,' [says Smith], 'simply because most of the heaviest people in the world have been men. There hasn't been a woman who has done what Jimi Hendrix did. I don't blame that on anything; if a woman wanted to do it, she'd do it.'" This is not to say that women haven't tried­­but Smith's quote, and ­­Rock She Wrote­­ as a whole, illustrate what women can accomplish if they remain strong and true to their dreams.

Powers writes in the "Outro" to the book, "Our society still regards women's sexuality as a force that needs controlling, and for all its anarchistic tendencies, the music lives within society. So within this culture that feeds on their libidos, women have rarely been allowed honest expression." She is talking about how so many rock bands have risen to stardom as a direct result of the devotion of their teen-girl fans, and how those selfsame fans are stereotyped in the end as being simple sex objects, capable of longing but never capable of either writing competently about music or making good music themselves.

The only danger in Rock She Wrote is the perpetuation of an alternate stereotype: that of the sexist male rocker/magazine editor. While these men do exist, and far outnumber those men who struggle to give women a fair shot, they are not the only men in the world. Perhaps I've been lucky to work with male journalists who have made room for women reporters, critics, and editors. And for those men who still think women "can't do it as well as men can," there is "Rock She Wrote," an anthology of some of the most comprehensive and astute rock writing ever compiled. We've needed this book for a long time. We can only watch and see how it will change things.

As journalist Leslie Berman said, "Part of me says, 'We'll fight them on the beaches, and we'll make them give in and see that we're right, and they'll march shoulder to shoulder with us and we'll be equal.' And part of me says, 'Fuck them, we'll have our own revolution.'"

This article was originally published in Addicted to Noise.