From Angus Young’s duck walking across stage to Jimi Hendrix on his knees summoning devil fire, the iconography of the guitar hero is definitely masculine. Even when rock was at its most androgynous in the 70s and 80s, it’s the image of the leather clad, make up caked, misogynists using their low slung guitars as penis extensions that endures.

As if to further cement the guitar gender gap, the “name the 35 iconic guitarists” game that is doing the rounds on the Internet is entirely devoid of women. It’s not a snub, for all their brilliance I’m sure Nancy Wilson, Joan Jett and Bonnie Raitt would be as surprised as anyone to see their image sitting alongside Hendrix, Harrison, and Page on the top row. The imbalance is nonetheless disheartening, and strangely consistent (Rolling Stone’s list of the Top 100 Greatest Guitarists features only two women).

Times have changed however, and the intense machismo of the past no longer informs the image of modern guitar music in quite the same way. In 2012 the landscape is full of understated nice guys (Paul Gilbert), detached odd balls (Jack White), sullen metallers (Fredrik Akesson), and shy shoegazers (see any indie guitar icon). The modern guitarist comes in a thousand and one forms, and spell binding female guitarists no longer need to conform to a set of macho troupes - they can be feminine, feral, ferocious, and utterly undeniable in whatever way they choose (check out Gemma Thompson of Savages for a great example of all of the above).

This week Guitar Planet celebrates great female guitarists, and we’re diving straight in at the deep end, by naming the five best in the world right now (with no genre or style restrictions).