WOMEN IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY: BEHIND THE SCENES
In 2019, the USC Annenberg Inclusive Initiative released the first-ever set of statistics about female roles in the music industry. They revealed that only three per cent of women were engineers and mixers and out of 651 producers again, only three per cent were credited as female.
When we think of women in the music industry, our minds normally drift to female artists and musicians, because the media ignore important women behind the scenes. It's the very nature of preventing the next generation of women from entering into the industry where there are no mentors to look up to.
But who are these women?
Shino Parker, creative director of Sentric Music, teamed up with The Association of Music attended The Only One in the Room conference to speak about diversity and inclusion the work place being the first pregnant lady to speak at these conferences.
Shino Parker, creative director of Sentric Music, teamed up with The Association of Music attended The Only One in the Room conference to speak about diversity and inclusion the work place being the first pregnant lady to speak at these conferences.
Samantha Warren, Founder of In the Key of She
Samantha Warren, Founder of In the Key of She
They are sound engineers, managers, or creative directors of record labels, publishers, and producers. These are the roles that have been overlooked and it's only today women in those roles are speaking up.
Women’s Audio Mission, a non-profit organisation run by women to attract girls to the industry, has said that less than five per cent of the people creating the sounds, and music in the daily soundtrack of our lives are women or gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals.
As a woman myself trying to get into the music industry, but not as a musician or artist but behind the scenes, this project is personal. I was interested in understanding how my gender will affect me trying to break into the music industry. Wanting to know more, I had to first speak to men in the industry and see how they feel and perceive the gender imbalance.
1. It's a Man's World
Toby Jarvis, composer and founder of A-MNEMONIC, a creative music company for brands and entertainment, believes that even though there is a lack of representation between men and women within the music industry he says that there has been a lot of change.
“In my experience anyway, more than half or so of all our clients in that respect are women and I’ve never had to consider that really,” says Toby. Although he does confirm that over the past year, he has noticed people in the head office of their partnered brands, they became overwhelmingly male.
Yet, when asked whether he thought women were disregarded for being female in the industry, he felt they weren't. He doesn’t think that women are not getting jobs or being ignored because of their gender, because he has worked with so many women in the past.
Tim Lofts explaining the balance to mixing sound to film.
On the other hand, Tim Lofts, a sound engineer with 30 years of experience and working at No. 8 studios, believes that sound engineer roles are especially dominated by men. He says the reason there’s such a lack of representation in these roles is that “I think my generation can be a problem and not seeing the problems and I don't know why.”
He recalls that over his years, he has employed about 11 people. He looks at hobbies and experience on a CV, treating it fairly for anyone to be employed, but only a small proportion of CVs are women. He doesn’t know why since most producers he works with are women.
“Rightly or wrongly, your perceptions get blinded by on a subconscious level, so then that’s all you gravitate to so, that affects the whole industry.”
Oscar Kugblenu
“Let’s call them glory areas. If you look in the Oscars, you’re going to have the second-best female director, so that shows women in those technical areas don’t get a fair shot, and that boils down into the sound industry areas as well. I think women tend to be limited,” says Oscar Kugblenu, an audio production manager at 19. Sound with over 25 years of experience.
Oscar believes that the reason why women are underrepresented in the industry is because of the stereotypical thinking of the people at the top. “Rightly or wrongly, your perceptions get blinded by on a subconscious level, then that’s all you gravitate to so that affects the whole industry.”
Interestingly enough, Toby, Tim, and Oscar were all taught by women at the start of their careers. This would have been about 40 years ago. It was unusual for women to have such prominent roles when women would have had entry-level roles. Oscar considers that “the dynamic cliché nonsense, women are nurturers looking after and that manifest itself out in the wider context of a business world.”
Although the three men I interviewed do not represent all voices of men in the industry, I did get a sense that this sort of topic was not considered enough. There haven’t been any numbers to show that women have been discriminated against in the industry, until now.
Oscar Kugblenu selfie.
Oscar Kugblenu selfie.
2. Women In Numbers
Three years ago, former CEO of The Recording Academy, Neil Portnow said that if women wanted to be recognised, they should “step up”. He was then replaced by a woman, Deborah Dugan, definitely a step up he did not see coming.
But how can women “step up”, as Neil Portnow puts it, if the industry has no data to help understand where they need to find solutions?
Former CEO of the British Academy of Songwriters, Vick Bain who is currently working on her PhD on women in the music industry at Queen Mary’s University, published the first of many reports on inequality within the business in 2019.
Her report analysed over 300 music publishers and record labels in the UK. She found out that ‘of those working for 126 UK music publishers, 36.67 per cent were female. She explained in the report that ‘there are six men signed to the UK music publishers for every one female ’.
“Women are discriminated against across society. It doesn’t matter what sector you look at. If you’re looking at nursing, for instance, you’ll find 90 per cent of nurses are female. All of the managers will be white men, so you see this vertical sex segregation, where women dominate in the lower page ranks” says Vick.
She concluded that there are 12 barriers women have to face when starting a career in the industry, although as her research continues, Vick has identified in reality 42 and counting. The barriers are:
1. Historical context
2. Motherhood Penalty
3. Unsociable hours
4. Gender pay gap
5. Female singers
6. Technophobia
7. Sexism and Harassment
8. Gendered Careers
9. Unconscious bias
10. Lack of role models
11. Confidence
12. The gender of music
Graph Screenshot from Vick Bain's 2019 gender report.
Graph Screenshot from Vick Bain's 2019 gender report.
Graphs Screenshot from Vick Bain's 2019 gender report.
Graphs Screenshot from Vick Bain's 2019 gender report.
Vick Bain at the Girlsirate Panel as part of an Urban Underground Conference. Photographer: Carla Marie Williams.
Vick Bain at the Girlsirate Panel as part of an Urban Underground Conference. Photographer: Carla Marie Williams.
Alice Cooper with Amy Sciarretto.
Alice Cooper with Amy Sciarretto.
78 % of women are treated differently in their employment (showed blue).
78 % of women are treated differently in their employment (showed blue).
52 % of women believe that their gender affects their employment.
52 % of women believe that their gender affects their employment.
With 25 years of experience in the music industry, not everything was what she thought it would be. When Vick started temping for various companies at the beginning of her career, one woman who ran an agency told her that if she wanted to get on in the industry, she had to wear short skirts, lots of makeup, and smile a lot. “I was told, instead of being offered a pay rise, they would give me a frock allowance” says Vick.
“There have been times, where I would be backstage trying to get an interview done and some tour security guy would be treating me like I was a groupie” says Amy Scarriatto, former freelancer and now founder of her PR company, Atom Splitter. “I’m not back there to meet a guy, I’m back there because I have a freakin deadline.”
According to the Berklee Women in Music Release Study, 78 per cent of women in the US in the industry have been treated differently to their male counterparts, with 52 per cent believing that their gender has affected their employment.
“I do believe that misogyny comes from fear. Why would you want to lose your dominant position, because the more women that come into the industry, the fewer men will get the jobs.”
Samantha Warren
Samantha Warren , university professor and founder of In the Key of She, partnered with Leverhulme Trust and the Association for Electronic Music to explore female electronic producers. She surveyed people about diversity and inclusion of genders in the industry for a report which is set to be released this summer.
Samantha Warren explaining her 2021 unpublished report.
“We don’t hear these people’s voices about these things, so I decided that I would” says Samantha. When asked about her calculations on the gender pay gap in the business, Samantha explained that if we continue at the rate that we are going, at which is 2.6 per cent employment gap per year on average, it will take the industry 90 years to include 50/50 men and women producers on the top of 600 music records. Unless we do things differently. “I do believe that misogyny comes from fear. Why would you want to lose your dominant position, because the more women that come into the industry, the fewer men will get the jobs.”
Shino Parker, creative manager of Sentric Music Group and also a collaborator on the unpublished 2021 survey with Samantha, couldn’t believe how hard it was to find women speakers in the industry when previously working at the Brighton Music Conference in 2015. Her biggest problem was finding female label managers. When finally finding one, the woman dropped out. “I think it was because of confidence” says Shino.
Shino Parker at the International Music Summit.
Shino Parker at the International Music Summit.
This looks back to Vick’s list, where she identified confidence as a barrier. But maybe the lack of confidence is due to the high bro-culture women have to experience with the demand to ‘fit in’ and be ‘one of the guys’.
Rika Muzika Studio.
Rika Muzika Studio.
Hannah Brodrick and equipment.
Hannah Brodrick and equipment.
Sara Al Hamad believes it is the slowly changing traditional education system that raises the issue of the gender gap. Business Affairs Manager for the Association of Independent Music and founder of music label Rika Muzika, Sara says the whole bro-culture and education system being so old, and women entering such a business where positions include quite a lot of power and money handling, women are not trusted. “We’re taught men as men, and women as women, and when I say that you know exactly what I mean, and because you know exactly what I mean that is the problem” says Sara.
Sound engineer, Hannah Brodrick, was never taught that her career could be a career. “I was constantly told, oh, it’s competitive and stuff and I was a bit of a downer because I was like one of the only girls in my class at uni.” Hannah believed for a long time that the reason that there were no role models to look up to was that women were just not technical enough to do this job.
Currently studying sound in Amsterdam, Zosia Wielgus is one of four girls out of 50 in her class, but the only one doing live sound. As a regular on sites such as SoundGirls.org, she finds it hard on other sites, when the first thing that stands out are the problems. “You enter the website and just in front of your face you have that sexual harassment part and it’s like okay, so if I enter the industry, I’m probably going to be sexually harassed, and it’s so discouraging” tells Zosia.
Though today we now have more statistics on the issue, and more campaigns and websites such as The Equal Directory or Future Music Industry, the problem is the mindset. From all these interviews the recurring topic was education and changing the mind through early stages. This might close the gender gap earlier than 90 years as Samantha predicted, but looking back at Neil Portnow’s comment, ‘how high do we step’ to make a change?
3. One Voice
Q&A with Beth Martinez, founder of her own record label, Danger Village.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
“I’m from Chicago and I started my company in 2007, so this is 14 years into it. I started Danger Village for a lot of reasons, but I wanted to choose who to promote, and I like to be in charge. We promote artists who are on the rise, or up and coming and we help them get more attention.”
Why did you want to get into the music industry?
“I don’t think anyone’s asked me that before. I guess more like a calling where there was just a very clear moment in my life, where I was like this is what I’m going to do. When I was in school me and my friends joined this concert promotion committee and I always loved music, but it wasn’t something I thought would be a career. But it was like a lightning bolt. A very strong certainty that this was the path forward in my life, and there has never been another.
Whilst trying to figure out what I loved which ended up being PR as I was instantly drawn to it than other roles like working in radio or being a manager at a record label, there were times where I thought I didn’t fit because I would see my male contemporaries be able to grow down with these record labels or with these managers and I never felt like one of them. A lot of my best friends are guys, but it was like I was not included no matter how hard I tried. They honestly, I think see me as someone they would have sex with rather than work with. I don’t think I felt judged as much as I felt just categorised as a woman, and that is not someone I want to work with.”
Were there any situations where you were put in a corner?
“I believed in doing good honest work and working with good music, I felt that I could do that and be successful. In 2012 there were certain people I had to cut out of my life specifically in a company where later I found out a lot of sexual abuse and a lot of drugging and dealing and disgusting stuff, so I made the right decision to not be associated with that person anymore.
Probably half the women I’ve ever known have left the music industry. Someone at a label told me that she had to be the assistant for years before she got hired as an A&R, and then these 25-year-old dudes walk in and get hired with no experience.
I work in a white man world. There are not even women who are ready to step into those roles, because they haven’t been given the chance.”
What do you think the industry should do?
“How far back do we want to go? I mean the very least, the music industry needs to start being proactive in hiring people, and women to work all levels of their jobs.”
What are your long-term goals?
“I just truly want to prove that it’s possible to be successful and have integrity and care about people because the music industry does not care about people.”
4. What Next?
Though the statistics might seem overwhelming, there are so many women trying to already make a difference. It might sound cheesy, but the best thing to do is to stick together and talk about the issue whenever possible. Here is some advice women in the music industry behind the scenes have to say…
