"Fender Bender," The Attempt to Degender the Strat

Courtney Love and daughter Frances Bean Cobain rocking the "Hello Kitty" Strat

Back in the Zeroes, US guitar-maker Fender felt electric guitars were too "macho" and "gendered," thus cutting their potential market in half, and decided to reach out to the softer, more sensitive half of the population with this cat-themed item.

After permission from Japanese character company Sanrio, the special edition guitars were launched in 2005 to a fanfare of publicity. As part of this several of the guitars were given to prominent rock figures, including Slash from GUNS N’ROSES, Dave Navarro of JANE’S ADDICTION, and THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, who all nervously posed with the them for publicity shots.

Slash doing what's he told

But it was the one that Fender gave to HOLE's Courtney Love that truly fitted into the company's agenda of making the thrusting phallic lines and orgasmic scream of the Strat less "threatening" to the part of the population that likes to knit and go shopping.

But did it make a difference? No. Women have been "strapping on" Strats since the 70s whenever they felt the need to, and continue to do so.

Really, this was just a short-lived gimmick which didn't really do much to de-gender the fender or anything. The guitar, after all, isn't an actual penis and is nothing to be afraid of. It's just something you strum and pick in whatever way suits you best.

Courtney Love's guitar on exhibit in Tokyo October, 2009

Colin Liddell
Revenge of Riff Raff
13th January, 2026

Revenge...?

RIFF RAFF was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately, it was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-n-Jack-Daniels-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more nerdy and woke publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers... BUT it is also a place for new talent to rise and shine. So, don't be shy! In the words of the immortal Fly, send in your "news, blues, and reviews" - and even interviews if you've got the balls to buttonhole your heroes!