I think many of us have seen the differences of how men and women are treated in the music industry. From forcing rivalry on the few women rappers, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, to ridiculing SZA for her reclaiming of the word “side-hoe”, women get the short end of the stick when it comes to expressing their experiences. In Jane Bowers book, Women Making Music, she discusses the lack of musical impact that women got credit for due to neglect and inconsideration of societal and class stats. In fact, she explained that “Musicologists have paid little attention to the sociology of music” (Bowers & Tick 1986). This lack of attention to the important aspects of what gets women into music in the first place, is the reason why women in our modern day in age need to make a credited impact that women in history have been silenced for.
However, years may have passed, but the bad treatment of women still remains unresolved. In a study titled Inclusion in the Recording Studio? done by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, women were found to be overly under-appreciated in our modern day society. Dated only two years ago, this study found that “A total of 1,239 artists were attached to the 600 top songs. In 2017, a full 83.2% of artists were men and only 16.8% were women. This calculates into a gender ratio of 4.9 male artists to every 1 female artist”(Smith, Chouetiti & Pieper 2018). That’s almost FIVE men to every woman’s song that made it into the top 600 songs. It’s not that women are incapable of achieving this goal, it’s the harsh reality that women are just perceived in a way that society nonchalantly overlooks.
That being said, music is widely known to be the ultimate universal language. It possesses an emotional, unspoken, therapeutic ability that sometimes surpasses even the most credible form of psychological verbal medicine. Women suffer through a multiplicity of emotional stress, whether thats through race, sexuality, or any other circumstantial factors. These emotional stressors work as fuel for a musicians musical inspiration through their instrumentals, lyrics, and overall sound. Women with musical talent need to take advantage of this. In Stefan Koelsch’s article, Brain Correlates of Music-Evoked Emotions, he discusses the emotional de-stressing that music provides for the human brain: “the hippocampus is involved in music-evoked positive emotions that have endocrine effects associated with a reduction of emotional stress, such as lower cortisol level”(Koelsch 2014). The overall essence of that statement is saying that music helps with emotional stress. And the best way for aspiring women artists to do that is to express their struggles through their music, and at the same time, create something even more beautiful and relatable in the process.
References
Bowers, J. M., & Tick, J. (1987). Women making music: The Western art tradition, 1150-1950. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. tradition, 1150-1950. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. University of Illinois Press.tradition, 1150-1950. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. University of Illinois Press.
Koelsch, S. (2015). Music-evoked emotions: Principles, brain correlates, and implications for therapy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1337(1), 193-201. doi:10.1111/nyas.12684A
Smith, S. L., Dr., Choueiti, M., & Pieper, K., Dr. (2018). Inclusion in the Recording Studio? Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Artists, Songwriters & Producers across 600 Popular Songs from 2012-2017. USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. Retrieved from https://annenberg.usc.edu/admin/nodes/text-box/new-study-dr-stacy-l-smith-annenberg-inclusion-initiative-inclusion-recording
WOMEN IN MUSIC 