Wow. I really needed to read this thread. I realize the original post is quite old; I am grateful to the posters who kept bumping it up over the last few years so I could see it today.

I have been thinking about the lack of prominent women in guitar a great deal over the last few months, as I've slowly picked up the guitar again. Maybe it shouldn't mater to me so much - I'm a grown woman, not a child, and reasonably I shouldn't need to see "someone who looks like me" doing something in order to believe I can do it too. But it does. It does matter. Because even for me, the distance from noticing that "women don't play electric guitar" to believing that "women CAN'T play electric guitar" is terribly short.

I specify electric guitar because I was already aware of a number of classical guitar virtuosos. Ana Vidovic has already been mentioned here. I can also add, off the top of my head, the names of Sharon Isbin (Sharon Isbin - Asturias) and Tatyana Ryzhkova (F. Tárrega, Capricho Arabe performed by Tatyana Ryzhkova). But they all play classical guitar. Not blues, jazz or rock. Not Teles or Strats or Les Pauls or ES-175s. And yes, that matters. Because guitarists growing up today are still learning that electric guitars, like cars and airplanes, are toys for boys. And a girl who dreams of making a Telecaster cry and sing can feel... lonely, sometimes.