The great Connie Francis (Who’s Sorry Now, Where the Boys Are, Lipstick on Your Collar) figured out early in her career that rock and roll favors male voices, and that if she wanted to have hits she would have to be “cute”. Even the most famous of the female rockers of that era (e.g. Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt) mostly have an unfeminine quality to their actual voices. The ones that were genuine successes (Carole King, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Melissa Manchester) are perceived as being closer to the Easy Listening/Adult Contemporary). Some of the other successful feamle acts of the late-70s early 80s were Disco (Laura Brannigan, Donna Summer). Even the New Wave groups of the ‘80s mostly fell into the Cute genre (Go-Gos, Waitresses, Bananarama, Bangles). The Eurythmics MIGHT be an exception, and they are post 70s.
Speaking of Melissa Manchester, she was the singer on National Lampoon’s “Deterioriata” (You are a fluke of the Universe)
I liked "Sweet Dreams," but I thought the video was poorly conceived. Anyway, to my knowledge, Annie Lennox is still working and highly successful. She sang "Into the West" at the end of one of the Lord of the Rings movies.