John Lennon Told an All-Woman Band That ‘Girls Don’t Play Guitars’ 

As a founding member of The Beatles, John Lennon became one of Liverpool’s biggest success stories. As the band rose to fame, though, many other local acts also established themselves. In the early 1960s, Liverpool was a hub of music. One of the local acts to find success were the Liverbirds, the U.K.’s first all-woman band. Lennon was not a fan of the group. He made misogynistic comments, though this only strengthened their resolve.

In the early 1960s, The Liverbirds traveled to Hamburg, just as The Beatles previously did. The band swiftly found success in Germany. With these performances, The Liverbirds wanted to become “the female Beatles.”

“We wanted to be the female Beatles, and we wanted to do it first,” band member Mary Dostal told The Guardian. “Everybody was really curious at first; people were like, ‘I don’t know what to think about this.’”

At least one Beatle wasn’t sold on the idea of women in a rock band. In conversation with the group, Lennon told them that “girls don’t play guitars.” This didn’t dim their hopes, though. If anything, it only made them focus harder on their craft.

“We thought: let’s prove to him that we can,” Dostal said. “It gave us more enthusiasm rather than putting us off.”

John Lennon’s problems with women extended beyond this band

Given the way Lennon treated the women in his life at this time, his attitude toward The Liverbirds isn’t all that surprising. He had a violent streak and was abusive in his relationships.

“I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically — any woman,” he told Playboy, adding, “I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything’s the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace.”

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Lennon claimed that by 1980, when he gave the interview to Playboy, he had completely changed the way he treated the women in his life.

“I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence,” he said. “I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.”

The former Beatle later wrote a song called ‘Woman’

Perhaps as a way to express his regret, Lennon wrote the song “Woman” for his album Double Fantasy. He explained that he realized he was taking all women for granted.

“‘Woman’ came about because, one sunny afternoon in Bermuda, it suddenly hit me what women do for us,” he told Rolling Stone. “Not just what my Yoko does for me, although I was thinking in those personal terms … but any truth is universal. What dawned on me was everything I was taking for granted. Women really are the other half of the sky, as I whisper at the beginning of the song. It’s a ‘we’ or it ain’t anything.”

How to get help: In the U.S., call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.