TuneCore And Believe Partner With MIDiA For Women In Music Study

New Study

MIDIA RESEARCH and TUNECORE/BELIEVE have released a new study on women creators, revealing "the challenges, experiences, inspirations and their ambitions in today’s music industry." 

The report, "Be The Change: Women Making Music 2021," collates the views of 401 female creators – artists, songwriters, producers and DJs – from around the world. Many of them are independent artists, starting out on making a career in music with little support from the industry’s traditional infrastructure. Some are self-managed, running their own labels and production companies. Others are signed to labels or establishing themselves as songwriters, navigating their way through what the report notes is, "a complex, male dominated industry."

Some highlights from the study:

• Gendered expectations have skewed recognition and reward in the music industry: Of 401 women creators around the world, 81% think that it is harder for female artists to get recognition than male artists
• Linked to this is the fact that there are not as many female role models for independent creators (81% agree, 49% "agree strongly")
• Almost two-thirds of female creators identified sexual harassment or objectification as a key challenge, making it by far the most widely cited problem
• Sexualization and objectification are a consequence (or symptom) of unbalanced power dynamics, as shown by the "big three challenges": ageism (identified by 38%), lack of access to male-dominated industry resources (36%) and lower pay (27%)
• These major challenges are symptomatic of deeper issues of systemic male dominance permeating industry attitudes and behaviors. Over 90% of respondents said that they had experienced unconscious bias, nearly half of them frequently
• Music composition, production and sound has long been connected primarily with men, so it is no surprise that the majority of female creators (63%) feel excluded from the composition and production, which makes this aspect of music creation highly "genderised"
• Although the overall representation of women in society has increased over the past few decades, 84% of women creators still feel that there exists a perception that women are expected to take on the primary role of parenting duties. The music industry wants female artists to be young – partly a symptom of the industry’s youth obsession, but also so that women become successful before they are presumed to decide to take on the role of motherhood
• To bring more female creators into the industry, women want changes to come from within organizations and from leaders across the music industry through diversity, policies and culture, with 42% stating this as a "top 3" reason to encourage more women into the industry. Meanwhile, 38% of female creators want to see this organizational change underpinned by legislation
• The most practical starting point is in female-friendly resources and safe work spaces (34%) and 35% of women creators want more change to come from learning and shared experiences, in the form of coaching and mentoring

TUNECORE Chief Revenue Officer ANDREEA GLEESON said, “When I discovered that only 28% of TUNECORE artists are female, I was surprised. While that’s better than the industry standard, which indexes around 11%, it’s still not good enough. We partnered with MIDiA to figure out, when the barriers to entry are low, why then are women still so grossly underrepresented? The study reveals the main reasons behind why female creators feel unsupported and identifies key areas of improvement. It arms us with the information we need to do better."

BELIEVE CEO DENIS LADEGAILLERIE said, “At BELIEVE, we take gender equality very seriously and it is part of the company’s DNA. Within the music industry, we collectively have a responsibility to change mindsets and behaviors in order to create a better environment for all women in our community.”

MIDiA Research Consultant SRISHTI DAS added, “Men have an important part to play in resolving the gender gap and being inclusive of all genders is where this begins. Ultimately, mixed-gender work environments will benefit from the separate and diverse skills of different genders. This seems to be the key message from women creators.”

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