Back المرأة في الموسيقى Arabic Dones en la música Catalan Frauen in der Musik German Mujeres en la música Spanish زنان در موسیقی Persian Place des femmes dans l'histoire de la musique French Ụmụ nwanyị na egwu IG സംഗീതരംഗത്തെ സ്ത്രീകൾ Malayalam Kobiety w muzyce Polish موسیقی وچ خواتین PNB
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Women in Music play many roles and are responsible for a broad range of contributions in the industry. Women continue to shape movements, genres, and trends as composers, songwriters, instrumental performers, singers, conductors, and music educators. Women's music, which is created by and for women, can explore women's rights and feminism. Women in music impact and influence creativity, activism, and culture.
Currently, a significant percentage of popular and classical musicians are women, and a significant portion are songwriters (many of them being singer-songwriters). Despite this, few record producers, rock critics, or rock instrumentalists are women.
Female artists in pop music, including figures like Madonna, Björk, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift, have openly addressed the issue of sexism within the music industry.[1][2][3] A 2021 study stated that "over the last six years, representation of women in the music industry has been even lower."[4][5] Despite their substantial contributions from the medieval period to the present day, women composers are under-represented in the commonly performed classical music repertoire, music history textbooks, and music encyclopedias. For example, in the Concise Oxford History of Music, one of the only female composers mentioned is Clara Schumann.
While women constitute a significant proportion of instrumental soloists in classical music and the percentage of women in orchestras is increasing, a 2015 article on concerto soloists in major Canadian orchestras indicated that 84% of the soloists with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra were men. In 2012, women made up just 6% of the top-ranked Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. Few of the prominent instrumentalists in popular music genres such as rock and heavy metal are women, and women are particularly underrepresented in extreme metal genres,[6] although there have been various female instrumentalists and singers in all-female bands.
Women are also under-represented in orchestral conducting, music criticism and journalism, music production, and sound engineering. While women were discouraged from composing in the 19th century, and there were few female musicologists, women did become involved in music education, becoming more prominent in the field than men from the later half of the 19th century to the 20th century.[7]
According to Jessica Duchen, a music writer for London's The Independent, female musicians in classical music are "too often judged for their appearances, rather than their talent" and they face pressure "to look sexy onstage and in photos."[8] Duchen states that while "[t]here are women musicians who refuse to play on their looks...the ones who do tend to be more materially successful."[8] According to the editor of BBC Radio 3, Edwina Wolstencroft, the music industry has long been open to having women in performance or entertainment roles, but women have been much less likely to have positions of authority such being the conductor of an orchestra,[9] a profession which has been called "one of the last glass ceilings in the music industry."[10]
In popular music, while there are many female singers recording songs, there are very few women behind the audio console acting as music producers (the individuals who direct and manage the recording process).[11]
- ^ Crawford, Anwen (26 May 2015). "The World Needs Female Rock Critics". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 9 November 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- ^ Mizoguchi, Karen (12 December 2015). "Lady Gaga Calls Music Industry a 'F—king Boys Club'". People. Archived from the original on 9 November 2021.
- ^ McDermott, Maeve (9 December 2016). "Madonna blasts music industry sexism: 'If you're a girl, you have to play the game'". USA Today. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
- ^ Smith, Stacy L.; et al. (January 2018). Inclusion in the Recording Studio? Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Artists, Songwriters & Producers across 600 Popular Songs from 2012-2017 (PDF) (Report). Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. pp. 1–31. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 November 2021 – via USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism News staff.
- ^ Sisario, Ben (25 January 2018). "Gender Diversity in the Music Industry? The Numbers Are Grim". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 9 November 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
- ^ Schaap, Julian; Berkers, Pauwke (2014). "Grunting Alone? Online Gender Inequality in Extreme Metal Music". IASPM Journal. 4 (1): 101–116. doi:10.5429/2079-3871(2014)v4i1.8en. hdl:1765/51580.
- ^ Reublin, Richard A.; Beil, Richard G. (September 2002). "In Search of Women in American Song; A Neglected Musical Heritage". Parlor Songs. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ^ a b Morreale, Michael (19 March 2014). "Classical Music's Shocking Gender Gap". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 27 June 2016. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- ^ Duchen, Jessica (28 February 2015). "Why the male domination of classical music might be coming to an end". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
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