We want to discuss women in relation to music in an upcoming podcast episode, and we need your help.
Update: The Podcast Episode is now up!
Original story:
It’s a very broad subject, I know. But gender equality in the gaming industry is currently a hot topic, mostly because of the gamergate controversy. But the major music media outlets aren’t currently writing about the female perspective in the music industry, and even with the recent Madonna hatred, Robyn’s girls-only conference and the threats aimed towards Chvrches lead singer, there are news stories being reported, but no features connecting the dots between these events. Is it because it’s not an issue, have we asked the wrong questions or is because we haven’t been able to highlight the real problem? Maybe everything is just fine as it is?
As a female music fan, does gender matter? The bands you listen to, the lyrics you hear, how the artists are being represented. Do you feel gender equality does exist in the music industry in 2015?
I’m aware that most of our listeners are males, but if there’s a chance that one of you girls stumble upon this post – Leave your feedback in the comment section below. Feel free to mention any topic of your choice. If you want to be anonymous, feel free to email us.
Thank you
– Staffan
As a female music listener, I feel compelled to express my concern about the fact that, unfortunately, gender equality in music does not exist.
This is definitely a very broad topic, and I will try my best to summarize it as short as possible. The ways females and males are represented in music business are drastically different. One cannot simply go on a YouTube channel of a popular female artist without finding at least dozens of sexist commentaries under the post. This fact is extremely concerning because most of the women are getting “slut-shamed” for embracing their sexuality, whereas males are getting praises for showing their naked bodies in videos, live shows, etc. It goes beyond just the body image, it shows in a way women are being criticized too harshly by their physical appearances. For example, Adele is “too fat”, MØ “looks like a man”, Beyoncé is “too sexy”, etc. On the other hand, you have artists like Chris Brown or Justin Bieber jumping around shirtless, literally showing their underwear, and there are almost to none comments made about them being “too sexual.” Moreover, it feels like it’s too easy to come on female artist’s page and blatantly disrespect her looks than the other way around. We just don’t see the Internet trolls go over male rapper’s videos/Instagram accounts, etc and state how “ugly” they look, or “how overly sexualized they present themselves”. Moreover, people seem to just cover their eyes on female objectification portrayed in lyrics… How we can talk about equality when “Blurred Lines” was such a massive hit? I also have to mention that I’m not okay with the fact that a lot of people can’t seem to stomach the idea of males not being as masculine as they perceive them to be. Our society is just too full of need to label everyone, and it’s extremely upsetting. I could go on forever regarding this topic…
Hope this helped,
Best,
KT
What KT says is undoubtedly true and I think it’s the result, more than fame and media exposure, of an inherently sexist society because what happens on Youtube comment boards happens everywhere else. And it’s disgusting.
I find pretty sad that women make such a low percentage of festivals’s line ups, no matter how well their records sell, but I don’t think all-female festivals or all-female radio schedules (like for example the BBC did for March 8th) will help.
Women don’t need to play their own league nor a man to take them by the hand through the boys’ game.
They don’t need exposure, they need their talents to be acknowledged as complete and valid as those of their male colleagues.
They need the world to know they can play the game very well too.
People assume artists own every single bit of what they do, for example, when Justin Bieber went R’n’B the media reaction was “Justin Bieber goes R’n’B”, nobody spent a second of his life to elaborate the obvious: some guy behind a desk has decided that time has come to show some abs and deliver some ultra-watered down version of the weakest moments of D’Angelo’s career . And it’s because, no matter how stupidly he acts, at the end of the day, a man is a man and he does what he wants.
A man like Kanye West (the kinda man who turns oxygen into success) needs 10-12 people to produce a record, which generally turns out to be a great record, a total banger, and it’s HIS record. He made it.
But when it comes to women, well, it seems like they’re never around when there’s some decision making to do.
Lana del Rey is always a Woodkid’s creature. M.I.A. gets a nominee for the Oscars? That must be Diplo. FKA twigs’ sound? You mean Arca’s.
Whenever things sound fresh the media hurry to find the man behind it, and when things go bad, well, she just screwed up.
When Grimes’s Visions came out she had entirely made two other records already. Her music was neither a joke or a hobby, she was a full time artist expressing her own vision. No matter how well the record was received by the critics and the audience, everybody wouldn’t stop babbling about how better it could sound with another producer on the mixboard.
Would they say the same thing of a HudMo record? Absolutely not.
Why? Because an artist is always entitled to do whatever he/she wants with his/her art, that’s why.
There’s no need to say there’s plenty of amazing, super talented women in music blessing the world with their productions and their DJ skills getting all the acknowledgement they deserve but for me as long as festival promoters will consider Ariel Pink “a safer choice” than Micachu (just to name two), I’lll feel like we’re missing a chance.
(Sorry for my poor english)