The real fight is about recognition.

There's an interesting interview with Joni Mitchell in this month's Mojo in which she wades through what she once described as the "cesspool" of the music industry to deliver her verdict on the Woodstock generation, terming it "the greediest generation in the history of America", accusing its members of "dropping the baton" and mourning the fact that "People don't know what to do with peace. It always degenerates into fashion and fornication."

Proving far more headline-worthy however, is her recollection of the spirit of fierce competition between the female musicians of the 1960s and 70s, including Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Laura Nyro and herself. "I always thought the women of song don't get along, and I don't know why that is," she notes, remembering how Joplin "was very competitive with me, very insecure. She was the queen of rock'n'roll one year and then Rolling Stone made me the queen of rock 'n' roll and she hated that." And though photographs from the time show Mitchell and Baez smiling and embracing on stage during the Rolling Thunder Revue, she states: "Joan Baez would have broken my leg if she could, or at least that's the way it felt as a person coming out. I never felt that same sense of competition from men."

Even 40 years later, I don't imagine that many male musicians probably feel terribly competitive with their female counterparts. Yes, we are led to believe that Dylan felt intimidated by Baez but, by and large, there exists a curious gender division in music, only enhanced by the fact that awards ceremonies such as the Brits still divide categories along gender lines. Sometimes it makes music feel more like the world of competitive sport, in which to propose that Jamie T feels a rivalry with Bat For Lashes would be like suggesting that Theo Walcott really feels threatened by Kelly Smith.

Accordingly, when there are perceived rivalries we like to keep them all male (Kanye and 50 Cent, for example) or all-female (Sophie Ellis Bextor and Victoria Beckham). And in general, it's the female rivalries that the media relishes most. Take, for example, the latest supposed rivalry being stoked-up, Adele and Duffy, or the fact that we assume there must be catfighting behind the scenes of any girl group - witness the reporting of the Spice Girls' reunion tour, riddled with claims such as the rest of the band were peeved by Posh's refusal to wear a hooded top in case she messed up her hair.

It's just a dreary rehashing of the age-old nonsense that female co-workers can't get along nicely, that women secretly all despise one another, that there is only ever room for one queen bee. If there's a real fight going on it's for more female musicians to get the recognition they deserve - just as there still aren't that many women in the boardroom, there still aren't as many women as men in the music industry. Rolling Stone's list of 100 Guitar Gods included just two women (Joan Jett and Ms Mitchell), and the women that do succeed must often weather as much analysis of their image as their music. If we're going to have some musical in-fighting can we at least make it cross-gender?