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knobs, glance at the equalizer LED”, amongst others. Many within the
audio industry were outraged at the stereotyping and patronization run-
ning throughout the product description.
At the time, professional musician Catharina Boutari commented to
Gearnews:
It feels like I’m being treated as a puppy that wants to play and not
as a musician being talked to at eye level. And that it, in my opinion,
is what we women demand: talk to us at eye level, treat us as pros or
future pros, design advertising where professional female musicians
present gear in a professional way to other women, and you’re gonna
sell your shit.
(Gearnews 2018)
As a result of the backlash, Midiplus released a statement on their web-
site
17
apologizing for any offense caused and stating: “we have no inten-
tion of offending anyone. We have the deepest respect for people of all
genders, ages, and orientation”. What used to read “designed for females”
now reads “designed for live-streaming”. They claim the product was
aimed at those wanting to livestream karaoke performances, the major-
ity of whom are kids and young adults, and that this had been lost in the
translation.
These examples highlight a fairly nuanced problem facing the indus-
try. Proactively addressing the issue of under-representation of minority
groups requires careful thought and the balancing of (often misunderstood
and uninformed) representation of common belief systems and societal
cultures and norms.
The Problem With ED&I
There has been some criticism of equality, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I)
initiatives in recent years, and frustration that outreach activities, diversity
interventions, and equality charter awards seem to have made little impact
in many disciplines.
In most STEM workplaces (including industry and academia), the
“leaky pipeline” – the drop-off of female participation moving from junior
to more senior levels – still persists, with few institutions making any sig-
nificant change to the numbers and ratio of women in more senior leader-
ship positions (Hewlett et al. 2008).
There is often an over-reliance on diversity training packages, whose
effectiveness has not been demonstrated. Dobbin and Kalev (2016) argue
that diversity training designed to reduce bias in recruitment (hiring) prac-
tices doesn’t work, as the effects tend not to last beyond a couple of days.
More seriously, they can often activate a backlash from employees who
don’t like being told what to do, or what to think, by senior managers. This
leads to small rebellions against rules brought in to engender equality of
opportunity, and accusations of being terrorized by the “thought police”
(Dobbin and Kalev 2016).
235 Addressing Gender Equality in Music Production
It is also arguable whether outreach activities designed to attract those
from under-represented groups into a discipline – in our case designed to
attract women and girls to consider study and careers in music produc-
tion/audio engineering – are actually working. Despite years of work on
attracting women into engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering
and the IET (under the umbrella of Engineering UK) have not seen any
substantial increase in the proportion of female engineering students. It
is still stubbornly low at 15% and hasn’t improved since 2012 (National
Centre for Universities and Business 2019).
Indeed, when considering STEM workforce and looking at the rate of
publication in scientific journals by gender, Holman et al. (2018) predict
that at the current rate of progress and without some impactful interven-
tions, it would take 258 years for the gender ratio of senior physicists
to achieve parity! This is just one example in a discipline where gender
equality work has been established for a number of years (Institute of
Physics 2019).
Within music production, if we simply calculate the linear trend line
using data on paper authorship at AES conferences since 2012 (Figure
14.4), it would take until the year 2105 to reach 50% male authorship
(note, this is calculated using only eight years of data).
STRATEGIES FOR DRIVING CHANGE
Considering the current gender bias in music production across all lev-
els of engagement from education into professions, alongside the exist-
ing interventions and initiatives attempting to elicit a change in attitudes
and action, this section outlines the most important steps identified by the
authors required to drive change in the sector.
Deliberate effort is required by all involved in education and industry to
ensure that music production can fully realize its potential as an exciting
interdisciplinary dynamic sector, combining art, science, and technology,
for participation by all to benefit all.
Understand the Problem: A Data-Driven Approach
Gather Data
A data-driven approach to both understanding the problem and design-
ing solutions is fundamental. We have presented data by gender in this
chapter to illustrate the current state of music technology education and
the audio engineering industry. However, much of this data was diffi-
cult to obtain since it is not readily available, partly as a result of the
interdisciplinary nature of the field and the variety of routes into music
production. It is imperative that data is collected and made available
throughout processes across the industry. Whether concerned with edu-
cation or professions, this needs to include gender data from expression
of interest stage (where possible) through to recruitment, retention, and
progression.
236
Jude Brereton, et al.
Recommendation: Gather and publish data on women’s participation
in music production, audio engineering, and music technology education.
Understand the Causes of Under-Representation
Collecting quantitative data is only the first step in starting to address the
issues behind under-representation. Numbers only tell us so much; quali-
tative data is also needed to reflect the lived experiences of women in the
industry and the variety of career journeys they’ve taken. Only with both
quantitative and qualitative data can we start to properly understand the
barriers to inclusion.
It is easy to assume that women don’t participate in particular subjects
and industries through a personal choice or a lack of interest, but this may
be in effect confusing the symptom for the cause. In fact, there are mul-
tiple larger factors related to biological and societal gendered expecta-
tions that mean not all choices are freely made (Ceci and Williams 2011),
including familial influences and parental expectations, peer norms, the
awareness of being outnumbered in a male-dominated environment, and
the perception that engineering just isn’t for girls (Andrews and Clark
2012b; Dasgupta and Stout 2014). This also extends to awareness of
work environments, including whether the hiring process is biased,
whether an industry or department is inclusive or not, and whether
one would be able to maintain existing work and family commitments
(Dasgupta and Stout 2014).
Work such as this should be extended to music production to examine
whether these factors are also at play here, and to what extent.
Recommendation: Undertake and publish more research on the causes
of women’s under-representation in music production (this book is a good
start!).
Find Out What Works
There are a number of professional bodies and organizations who have
been championing gender equality in STEM disciplines in higher educa-
tion (e.g. Athena SWAN, Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics,
Royal Academy of Engineering) over the last 20 years. The Audio Engi-
neering Society has also recently strengthened its efforts with the forma-
tion of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
18
Music production is an
interdisciplinary field, and is therefore not covered by one professional
body alone – but here is an opportunity to learn from work on gender
equality in the STEM disciplines.
Unfortunately, there is little systematic research and reliable evidence
on what actually works in changing culture and fixing gender imbalance.
Many outreach activities raise the profile of the discipline, but it has not
yet been shown that targeted outreach activities don’t just appeal to those
who might otherwise be interested even without the intervention.
Nevertheless, researchers are now beginning to collect and evaluate data
on the effectiveness of gender equality interventions. Dobbin and Kalev
237 Addressing Gender Equality in Music Production
(2016) suggest that the most effective interventions include: engaging
managers in solving the problem; promoting the desire to look and be
fair-minded; using targeted recruitment; mentoring; and making training
in diversity voluntary rather than mandatory. Dasgupta and Stout (2014)
identify a number of evidence-based recommendations for tackling under-
representation of women in STEM fields including: educational collab-
oration between schools and universities, informal STEM workshops,
mentoring, networking, blind review of applications, and supporting
work-life balance.
There are now a number of data repositories which can be consulted,
such as the Harvard University hosted Gender Action Portal (Harvard
Kennedy School Women and Public Policy Program 2019). There are
also books (for example, Bohnet 2016) and some freely available online
resources with suggestions for evidence-based interventions for changing
culture and addressing gender inequality, such as The Center for WorkLife
Law (2018), to which those in music production education and industry
can refer.
Ultimately, improving the diversity of any organization should not just
be seen as a tick-box exercise. It must be regarded as the most important
key to best practice in effective management and human resource policy
and implementation. But to do this effectively, organizations must heed
suggestions as to which inventions actually work.
Recommendation: Undertake and publish research on effective inter-
ventions for addressing gender inequality in music production.
Change the Culture
Many gender equality initiatives and outreach schemes focus on encour-
aging women to get involved in STEM or to adapt their approach to
working life and their own values in order to “fit” the prevalent male-
dominated industry culture. Such approaches can only have short-term
and somewhat fleeting success since ultimately “the very nature of
an occupation is discerned and organized around social identities like
gender and race” (Ashcraft and Ashcraft 2015). Women should not
be required to change themselves in order to fit into the majority-lead
culture – the so-called glass slipper problem. Rather, the culture of the
music industry system needs to change itself so that all are able to par-
ticipate and thrive.
Set Target/Inclusion Goals
It is clear that, whilst current interventions might be making positive
changes, if current trajectories continue we are many generations away
from a gender representation which reflects the wider society. One more
proactive approach is to set targets for inclusion which stipulate specific
numbers or percentages of non-male participation. This may include spec-
ified numbers (beyond a target of one) of non-males on strategy/advisory
boards, expert panels, within professional teams. and on recruitment short
238
Jude Brereton, et al.
lists. Whilst somewhat controversial, a precedent is beginning to be set
by large corporations, for instance, with ITV recently announcing a veto
on all-male writing teams (Guardian 2019). Whilst this may initially be
set quite low based on the current under-representation of females in
the industry, setting short-term to long-term targets which are regularly
reviewed could ensure a consistent increase in the trajectory of improved
gender representation.
Even within the music industry this is being explored: the Recording
Academy (USA) introduced The Producer & Engineer Inclusion Initia-
tive in 2019, which stipulates that at least two females should be included
in any hiring considerations. More than 200 artists, labels, producers,
and management companies have signed up so far. A webpage dedicated
solely to facilitating the process of identifying working female producers
and engineers explains why this sort of intervention is necessary:
We aren’t here to tell anyone who to hire, but we have seen repeatedly
that the simple act of making sure diverse candidates are always seen
and considered makes it more likely that women will get the opportu-
nities they previously have been denied.
(Recording Academy Task Force 2019)
Recommendation: Set challenging targets for diversity for organizations
working in music production and related education.
Majority Group Driving Change
Expecting females to take the lead in designing and delivering effective
initiatives for change has been shown to be counterproductive (Ovseiko
et al. 2017). When women are given sole responsibility for inclusion agen-
das, their time is taken up on the gender agenda, which prohibits progres-
sion within their actual field. For quick and meaningful change to happen,
males need to not only be on board as allies but also take proactive roles
in pushing the agenda. This includes listening to under-represented groups
and understanding their stories (evidenced through the data), but not
expecting them to fix the problem. Campaigns such as HeForShe
19
(the
United Nations’ global movement for men and people of all genders to
stand in solidarity with women) represent a strong step forward in this
regard, and represents a positive attitude amongst males to take a proac-
tive role in changing our culture and understanding the need of males to
be seen to be allies. Dan Rowson commented on Twitter:
20
“If you’re not
actively challenging and dismantling inequalities, you’re playing a part in
their continuation”.
It has been shown that women working in academia already get less
credit for doing the same amount of work as their male peers and are
overlooked (Macaluso et al. 2016; Feldon et al. 2017). Expecting women
to then also take on the extra burden of fixing gender equality within the
industry can be massively detrimental to their careers, and only exacer-
bates the gender imbalance problem. Having to act as a role model, mentor,
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