The Sexual Agency of Women in the 1st Wave of UK Punk: Siouxsie Sioux’s Use of Nazi Imagery & Clockwork Orange Make-Up as a Means of Feminist Power and Agency Through the Lens of Hauntology

Punk female agency is, more or less, dead. This paper will examine the sexual agency of Siouxsie Sioux of the Bromley Contingent, in the first wave of UK Punk in London, 1976-1980. This period allowed a space for women to exist, thrive, rage, be seen and heard in a way unlike any other. Through their dress and use of obscene imagery and costume, one could, and I intend to, argue that these women were the inception of, rather than the Sex Pistols, punk, as is stated and/or alluded to in Simon Barker’s Punk’s Dead. I will contextualize the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes and rampant invisible misogyny that was present in 1970s England. Looking at different media forms that seeped into every aspect of everyday life for all British people, regardless of creed, class, or gender. Such examples include what was playing on the radio at the time, what sitcoms, movies, advertising, and comics/magazine articles were dominating society. The intention is to examine how this first wave of UK punk created space for these women in the movement to exist and thrive as they did. Further, to try to understand what happened that made this phenomenal anomaly occur. How in such a misogynistic patriarchal society and early subculture that was otherwise male-dominated did these women not just exist, but thrive so incredibly and innovatively?