The second iteration of this project is available to download here . Be The Change: Women Making Music Key insights 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 Sexualisation and objectification are a consequence (or symptom) of unbalanced power dynamics, as shown by the next ‘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 behaviours; over 90% of our 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 ‘genderized’ Although the overall representation of women in society has increased over the past few decades, 84% of women still feel that there exists a perception that women are expected to take on the primary role of parenting duties.
