Here’s a Great Question: Why Aren’t There More Female Record Producers?
This thought has crossed my mind many times. The only woman producer of any renown I can name is Sylvia Massy. Why is this position so dominated by dudes? The Fade seeks to find some answers:
Beats aren’t gendered. We don’t listen with our genitals. So why are we still in the dark ages when it comes to gender equality in the music studio? Women represent less than 5% of music producers and engineers, something that Grimes recently highlighted in a tweet responding to aGuardian piece about the sexual assault and emotional abuse allegations recently leveraged by Kesha against Dr, Luke. Unfortunately, it’s story that’s disturbingly familiar in relation to the female performer/male producer dynamic.
Yes, the music industry—like every industry on this patriarchal planet—is sexist. That is not news. But this means we’re missing out on a whole world of sounds, stories, and perspectives. If you’ll allow me to go a lil’Virginia Woolf for a second, if the vast majority of music that surrounds us is produced by men, then most of the music we document will be music that is produced by men, which is how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place.
