Women in Music

CMCI lecturer Dr Ruth Adams participated in a panel discussion on the topic of Women in Music at the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham (Monday 31 August).

Also on the panel were Miriam Kaufman who has worked in various areas of the music industry and also sings, sometimes with the band Snow Patrol, and singer-songwriter Lou Brown. The panel was chaired by Pippa Wragg who runs a punk club and record label.

The panel discussed why there are still relatively few women performers in popular music, considering issues such as gendered socialization, the pressure to conform to images of ideal beauty, the prevalence of sexism in the music industry and the entertainment sector more generally, the ‘old boys rock network’ and their ‘tame’ journalists, and the difficulties for women of juggling family commitments with a career that can often involve late nights and travel away from home. They further considered why there are few top female executives in the music industry, but women are perhaps over-represented in the ‘back room’, working in promotion, administration and as artists’ agents and managers.