“Always an angel, never a God”: Where are all the women geniuses in music?
If you Google ‘musical geniuses’, at the time of writing, it takes a long time to find a woman. The AI overview pulls up a list of four men as the top-mentioned names, IMDb has you scrolling into the 20s of a long list before a woman appears, and Reddit forums dedicated to the topic are almost exclusively discussing men. Obviously, this isn’t a definitive measure, but it feels representative. Women can be great, but they are rarely labelled as geniuses—the world still seems to associate the word with a man.
“Always an angel, never a God,” Boygenius sing on ‘Not Strong Enough’. It feels like a pinnacle lyric that all three individual members have been trying to articulate and grappling with their entire careers, and exactly what their band name ironically gets at. It’s the idea that women only get to reach so far. They become “angels” – good, influential, iconic, and respected. They get to be praised and admired, but they don’t get to be “God” – awed, feared, all-powerful and unquestioned.
It’s easy to think of some of these Gods who, in collective cultural opinion, exist in this realm of utterly unfaltering, undoubted and undenied absolute greatness. Bob Dylan is there, The Beatles are there, Jimi Hendrix is there. Go back further, Mozart is there, Beethoven is there. But it’s tough to think of a single woman who has ever, unquestionably, reached that pinnacle.
It often feels like women’s art and creativity are treated as more subjective. There are people who don’t like Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney’s music, but still, it’s most broadly understood that they are, as a fact, great. That top tier feels like a closed rank, though. Madonna, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith: all great, but none of them make those lists when you search it or when you ask the average person for an immediate response list of the all-time best artists. There is something about the work of women that always seems to fall on the sword of personal opinion in a way that is sharper than men.
Think of, and stay with me here, Taylor Swift – an artist who has undeniably proved her power in terms of fame, legacy, and skill. She just wrapped up the highest-grossing tour of all time as people globally clamoured to see her. She broke the record of being the first person to win the Grammy for ‘Album of the Year’ four times in a row. Out of 15 albums, she has 14 number ones. She’s sold 114 million albums worldwide. You do not do that without talent; that is a fact whether you like the music or not. She holds so many historic positions in the music industry, yet she hasn’t been granted ‘God’ status, as the simple line of ‘I don’t like her music’ is enough to bring her down. There is less acceptance towards the idea of objective talent in women in the way that men are afforded.
Kanye West feels like the best – and most dangerous – example of this. From the moment the rapper released The College Dropout in 2004, the ‘genius’ label has been stuck to him and has empowered him since. As the years have gone by, he’s become the ultimate proof of how permanent that label is when it comes to men. Not only has West’s music undeniably worsened with his last few releases gaining middling reviews, or even outright bad ones in the case of Vultures 1 and 2. But West has become an actively dangerous figure.
In 2021, Clash magazine outright refused to score his album Donda after West chose to collaborate with Marilyn Manson, DaBaby and Chris Brown, three controversial and abusive figures. He routinely goes off on outright fascist and antisemitic rants on Twitter. During the recent Super Bowl, West paid for an advert to take people to a storefront displaying only a T-shirt with a swastika on it. Is that genius? Does that make him worthy of this unfaltering opinion people seem to have of him as a true and total great of our era? In decades’ time, when someone else looks into who the genius artists of this generation are, does his run of great albums genuinely allow him to qualify, erasing the bad ones and erasing the bad he’s done?
Women are never afforded the same unwavering reverence as men. We’ve all watched Kanye West fall from grace, yet never from cultural greatness. Time and again, people reinforce his ego, convincing him he is untouchable—no controversy severe enough to dethrone him. But has a woman’s creativity, talent, or intellect ever been granted that level of unquestioned respect? I can’t think of a single example where a female artist has been deemed so undeniably great that she remains at the top, even when she deserves to fall—unlike West, who undoubtedly does.
This pattern stretches across centuries and continues today. Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-fueled ramblings cement him as a literary icon, while Joan Didion’s groundbreaking journalism and Sylvia Plath’s enduring influence are confined to the label of “women writers.” Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan are lyrical masters; Joni Mitchell’s work is dismissed as “confessional,” reducing her brilliance to personal musings. The male frontmen of the 1970s became idols; Debbie Harry is merely “iconic.” When celebrating rock and roll pioneers, we name Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Little Richard—yet rarely Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who inspired them all. Even in politics, Donald Trump is afforded more trust in his intelligence than Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton, simply because society instinctively believes in male competence more than female capability.
It’s a vast issue stretching back through history. As Boygenius sing, “Always an angel, never a God,” the phrase could apply to any industry, era, or century. Women have long been relegated to domestic roles—raising children, managing households—labours never fully recognised as real work.
Traits considered “maternal” are assumed to be inherent rather than developed skills—listening, intuition, and pattern recognition. The same erasure happens in history, where women who shaped political movements, drove scientific breakthroughs, and influenced major events are forgotten, while the men they enabled are deified. In the creative world especially, “Always an angel, never a God” encapsulates how deeply talented women deserving of the highest respect are rarely placed alongside the so-called “god-tier” of men. Instead, they are labelled influential, iconic, and inspiring—but never genius.
Google it. Try to find a woman described as a genius without digging. It may seem like a trivial measure, but how else do people discover things today? Google is, for a lot of people, the first port of call when attempting to find information. Now, imagine a young girl eager to immerse herself in music, searching for inspiration, only to find a list of men. No reflection of herself. No indication that she belongs in that space. Likewise, imagine the young boys simply having the idea reinforced that men hold sway over the term. Now, with AI-driven search tools reinforcing male-dominated narratives, the cycle persists. Women remain underappreciated. Always good, never great. Always angels, never gods. The word genius remains a title reserved for men because it has always been seen in their image.
