I think that one of the reasons there wasn't a huge presence of female punk bands in the eighties (at least, American punk bands) is that hardcore drove a lot of the female musicians away. If you look at pre-1980 you'll see a larger number of women in punk rock (people like Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, and Poly Styrene talk about how the reason they got into punk was because how open it was to women). Post-1980, though -- when hardcore really took over what punk was and when bands like X, Talking Heads, Blondie, and the Go-Go's (among others) were shoved into "New Wave" -- the women disappear with a few notable exceptions. Even things like slamdancing tended to have more girls involved before hardcore. Even though not all of the bands in the book were hardcore, they came from or existed in that world. It wasn't until the late eighties and early nineties that this started to change with bands like Babes in Toyland and Bikini Kill (if you haven't, you should listen to the phone call Kathleen Hanna made to Mike Watt that he put on Ball Hog or Tugboat? -- it sums up the male-driven music of the eighties, at least from her perspective).