Gender Inequality and the Music Business

Gender is political. Relationships between men and women can be difficult, further complicated when attached to wealth, power, prestige and influence. Economic and social circumstances, rather than any implicit difference between men and women, affect equity of access to positions of power and influence for women in the music business.

Ongoing inequality in the music business is reflected in the annual industry ‘power lists’. Eleven women made the 2016 Billboard “Power 100 List” with one representative in the top fifty. Australia’s The Music’s “Power 50” for 2016 included 13 women. Ownership of the discovery, development and rewards of marketing artists attracts status and influence — of the 120 independent Australian record labels 80% are managed by men and there are currently no female artist and repertoire representatives working at the major record labels. In 2012 women held 52% of jobs in the United States creative class but men earned 40% more than women and when intersected with race an even more substantial divide (Florida).

Capitalist forces generally advantage men. Sociologist Raewyn Connell argues that wealth and power is “accumulating on an unprecedented scale, overwhelmingly in the hands of men” (562). Men’s agency and power in the workforce is a legacy of historical, structural conditions that made economic dominance and influence possible. Socialist feminist theorists argue that it is the relationship women have with economics that provides the primary source of disadvantage to participation in the work force.

While men have accumulated wealth through work, the social expectation on women is to have children — these oppositional forces have had a tangible social impact. Working whilst becoming a parent narrows the workforce choices of women. Michele Anthony, VP Universal Music Group when asked about inequality commented:

In our industry, the hours are long and unpredictable, as is the travel, and if women are disproportionately the primary caregivers in our families, they are disproportionately affected

Furthermore, not owning property or assets can significantly impact the ability of women in the music industry to fund and maintain small businesses. Of the 13 women in the Australian 2016 Power 50, only 5 (to my knowledge) are small business owners, or co-owners with men. Access to capital for women in small music businesses is intensified when you consider the gender disparity of reproducing, childcare, domestic work and lack of property ownership and assets. Sociological research by Losocco and Robinson on small businesses demonstrated that disadvantaged groups take up opportunities in niches that dominant groups find undesirable. In the ecology of the music business women more commonly work in the lower profit, fee for service areas of marketing, publicity, administration, book keeping and provide the majority of unwaged work that keeps the sector afloat.

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu connected capital and class with cultural and symbolic factors. Additional to income he proposed that culture, lifestyle, social benefits, institutionalised networks, reputation and prestige were all required to ensure class, power and influence. The ‘culture’ of the music business provides many markers of success that are not inherently related to income but are implicated in the status quo of inequality. Bourdieu also suggested that experiences growing up inform ways of acting, thinking and feeling that transfer to, and inform, others through social interaction. In the music industry, the dominant culture of men exerts power and influence through social networks and interactions that imply that their behaviour is somehow natural and legitimate.

The government may legislate against barriers to participation by women in the workforce but that alone will not be enough to increase women’s economic power or shift the culture in social relations required for the equality of women in the music business.

References

Bottero, W. (2005). Stratification : social division and inequality London New York : Routledge.

Connell, R. (2002). Gender Cambridge, U.K. : Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers.

Florida, R. L. (2012). The rise of the creative class revisited New York : Basic Books.

Loscocco, K. A. and J. Robinson (1991). “Barriers to Women’s Small-Business Success in the United States.” Gender and Society 5(4): 511–532.

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