Gender Discrepancy in the Music Industry
When you think of the music industry, who is the first person you think of? Probably a male producer or a male artist, but why is there a drop off between men and women? Throughout this literature review, I’ll explain what I found on why there is less women who want to work in the industry. I think this is an important topic because I think that no matter your gender or race that everyone should have an equal opportunity.
First, I want to talk about how gender inequality in the industry. Throughout the years, there has been a decline in the number of women who are in the music industry, whether that be producers or audio engineers, the numbers are low and still declining. In the article I read, by Issadora, says that as being a woman trying to get into the music business it can be discouraging because the success rate isn’t high. She says, “that in 2015, 13% of songwriters of pop songs were women. Comparing to recent years, this number has dropped to 12.2% in 2018”.
Second is why women are underrepresented in the industry. In this article, I found that in the industry men release more music and sign more record labels/deals than women. They did a study where listeners would listen to songs by men and women, and they found out that they gravitated towards men’s songs more than women’s because the women had more of an acoustic song than men. Women are also not able to get the amount of collaboration work that men get. When women don’t get the same opportunity as men, this can create a barrier that women face to advance their careers.
Next, I want to show some more statics about this topic. This article is a little bit more up to date so some of the numbers will be different than what was stated earlier. Overall, these numbers aren’t very high due to the fact that the music industry continues to be a male dominate industry. Milan Trajkovikj, the author of the article, says that within 8 years the number of female artists is below 30%. The highest percentage being 28.1% and the lowest being 16.8%. The number of female songwriters is at 14.4% and an all-time high of male songwriters being at 89%. The absolute lowest is the number of producers. Female producers are at 1.8% while the men are at 98.2%. Now I could go on with numbers, but as you see the number of women who are in the industry in some way is declining and as time continues to move the numbers could get even lower.
Lastly is what is or can be done about this inequality. Women are dealt with a lot in the workforce because they are working in a man’s league, but yet they are still able to perform at a task just as well as a man. There are camps and organizations out there that are helping young girls to strive at things they like and things they are interested in. Hopefully through doing this, that throughout the years, the number of women in the music field will increase and that they are treated as equal as men are.
In conclusion, from the articles I found, the number of women who want to be in the music industry is declining as the years go forward. This is something that people should be aware of because people talk about how everyone, male and female and those of different races, should all have equal opportunity, but if those opportunities aren’t given then we are holding back the potential of what people can do. This question is important because everyone deserves an equal opportunity to succeed if they have a passion for what they do. I hope that in the future if women want to sing more or become audio engineers then they should empower the next wave to do something bigger. For the future, I would want to know where the numbers of how many women are in the industry in a few years.
Work Cited
Trajkovikj, Milan. “Gender Inequality in the Music Industry (2022) - Statistics and Thoughts.” Musician Wave, 11 Feb. 2022, https://www.musicianwave.com/gender-inequality-in-the-music-industry-statistics/.
Young, Kat, et al. “The Impact of Gender on Conference Authorship in Audio Engineering : Analysis Using a New Data Collection Method.” White Rose Research Online, 22 Feb. 2018, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/128399/.
September 16, 2019 | By Kristin Samuelson. Women Grossly Underrepresented in the Music Industry, 2019, https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2019/09/women-are-underrepresented-in-the-music-industry/.
Tulalian, Issadora. Gender Inequality in the Music Industry. 2019, https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=backstage-pass>.