The Underrepresentation of Women in the Music Industry by Emma Hodges
- Overview of Topic
- Visual Culture Artifact: MAC’s “Future Forward” Campaign
- Contemporary Artist: Marina Abramović
- Artistic Connections
- Historical Connections
- Contemporary Cultural Connections
- Theoretical Connections
How did this particular representation of social identity come to exist?
What visual culture from the past may be relevant?
What other contemporary visual culture is relevant?
What past social, political, and cultural events and discourses may have informed the creation of or laid the groundwork for this artifact?
What present social, political, and cultural events and discourses may have informed the creation of this artifact?
What critical interpretations and analyses have been written about this topic?
How can course concepts such as gender and representation inform your understanding and interpretation of this artifact?
How do artists deal with this topic now?
- Historic Social, Political, or Cultural Events
- Recent Social, Political, or Cultural Events
- How does this work impact you?
Where do you fit into this visual or conceptual network and why?
- How does this investigation help you understand post-structural notions of identity as socially constructed?
Based on what you’ve found, what are the social implications?
Beyonce's Lemonade: “A central theme in Lemonade is the idea that as a black woman, Beyonce’s partner cannot “see her.” In one interlude she asks, “Why can’t you see? Why can’t you see me?” The emphasis on the erasure of the black women resonates with one of the earliest black feminist articulations on American soil” (Gaines, 2017, p. 100).
- References Page
“The uneven treatment of black and white women was prevalent in Truth’s day of 1862 and the resonances of that unequal treatment remain in American society today, both outside of and within the black community” (Gaines, 2017, p. 100).
Beyonce's Lemonade: “Beyoncé picks up on the implication of the divine female in the song “Don’t Hurt Yourself ” when she sings, “Love God Herself.” Beyoncé radically suggests that the divine is both black and female, opening a space of self-love for black women to reject and rebut the toxic assumptions of mass culture” (Gaines, 2017, p. 101).
“The people represented in pictures are also subject to stereotyping: for example, of women, men, ethnicities, and sexual orientations” (Duncum, 2010, p. 8). As young people, we are constantly exposed to the media which perpetuates these sexist "general roles" in our minds through stereotyping. However, the Internet gives us a voice, and if we draw attention to these occurences, we can work together to create more accepting and inclusive representations within the media.
Seven Principles for Visual Culture Education - “Stereotypes draw upon ideological constructions. While serving a need to gain immediate recognition, each marginalizes because each denies complexity. A lack of representation is equally problematic. Students should look not only for what is represented and how, but what is marginalized or left out altogether” (Duncum, 2010, p. 8).
“Gender divides raise critical social issues about perpetuating gender stereotypes, gender inequality, and oppression of certain gender identities and expressions” (Lai and Cooper, 2016, p. 97).
“By introducing students to the work of socially engaged artists, as well as to other forms of visual representation that leave us less immersed in the everyday, art educators can begin to challenge learners to reconsider the complexity of their daily-visual experiences” (Darts, 2004, p. 320).
“Educators have tried to eradicate gender divides by toning down or avoiding gender-specific topics and supporting gender-neutral curriculum. However, obliterating gender-specific content may lead to questionable gender-biased, gender-phobic, or gender-ignoring approaches in the art classroom. Urging educators to view gender categories as fluid, gender-complex teachers work with students to analyze at the micro-level the ways in which gender is constantly being socially constructed in the classroom which enables teachers and students to take reflective action to reconstruct gender” (Lai and Cooper, 2016, p. 102).
“Recent research emphasizes how children and young people use visual means to disrupt gender differences by trying out gendered subject positions in their visual representations. Gender differences in art education performance demonstrates that girls outperform boys especially in visual art classes in school, and that art education is perceived by pupils as something feminine and as a pause from more important schoolwork. The notion of visual art as a subject for expressing emotions causes pupils to perceive the subject as feminine” (Hellman, 2016, p. 328).
“Transforming gender roles is not about guilt or blame: it is about a lifelong learning process to effectively and humbly confront oppression. Some ways to build pro-feminist communities include: encouraging women’s voices and leadership in non-tokenizing ways, being pro-active in breaking the silence around sexual violence within broader society and activist communities, making our groups safe spaces in which to raise and address issues, and not marginalizing women’s issues or placing the sole responsibility for fighting oppression on the oppressed” (Boyd and Mitchell, 2016, p. 108).
“We do not just want “more” women’s representation. We must actively facilitate and highlight women’s own analysis and experiences of oppression, especially those of women of color. Though patriarchy affects women much more severely, it distorts the humanity of all genders and reduces our ability to be in kinship with one another” (Boyd and Mitchell, 2016, p. 108).
“Popular music, print media, art, and literature are some of the classificatory systems and symbolic means of expression through which humans organize their lives. People make, view, and reuse these media in different ways and in different places” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2018, p. 6).
“Representation is closely aligned with ideology because it refers to how ideology is presented in visual form” (Duncum, 2010, p. 7).
“The distinction between public and private has long been challenged. The notion of a separation of public and private spheres is based on gender ideologies that must be rethought. The traditional division between public and private depends on the belief that women should be relegated to the domestic sphere of the home and men to the public arenas of business, commerce, and politics” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2018, p. 242).
“White American and European male actors have historically dominated the top credits and are paid the most, with minority talent and women underrepresented on every front except in the casting of racial and gender types and at the lowest-paid rungs of the industry. Globalization of the film industry economy and the addition of some top talent from around the world have not brought overall gender, ethnic, and racial diversity or equity to the Hollywood industry” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2018, p. 401).
Women are outnumbered 47 to 1 amongst music producers. Especially within the workplace, women feel as if they have to prove themselves to the men that may be their bosses or simply their coworkers.
“Lion Babe, Dej Loaf, Halsey and Tinashe are the game-changing women who MAC turned to for their collaboration, the “Future Forward” campaign. Each leading lady made her debut on the Billboard charts for the first time the year before and have been influential in the music business ever since. Each are inspired by different aspects of music, so each collection will reflect the artist and draw from things inspired by their album” (Lowman, 2016, p.1).
“Creative Director James Gager looked forward to working with emerging artists stating, “It feels like a great thing to be able to support artists who are breaking through but aren’t necessarily at the top-top, to push them forward" (Lowman, 2016, p.1).
“Music and makeup are interconnected on many levels, since cosmetics aid the visual that matches the sound. MAC takes that connection to the next level with this campaign” (Sciarretto, 2017, p. 1).
Women in the music industry often feel that their skills are being discounted or that they are being sexualized and stereotyped due to their gender. These issues stem from years and years of gender-based discrimination and favoritism within society.
“You can love her, you can hate her, but one thing is for sure - you can’t ignore her. Abramovic's art leaves no one indifferent” (Pereira, 2015, p. 1). Her works shows the power a woman can have through performance art and why underrepresentation must end.
“Since the beginning of her career in Belgrade during the early 1970s, Abramović has pioneered the use of performance as a visual art form. The body has always been both her subject and medium. Exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation” (Spector, 2019, p. 1).
“Nothing will ever be the same in performance art after this famous Serbian, New York-based artist conducted dozens of breathtaking performances that became an inevitable part of contemporary art history” (Pereira, 2015, p. 1).
“Rhythm 0 is probably one of her most famous and most important performances: it is also one of the most significant works in the history of performance art ever conducted. The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet. As Abramović described it later: "What I learned was that... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you” (Pereira, 2015, p. 1).
“The Rhythm 0 performance played out to chilling conclusions: it ceased when audience members grew too aggressive” (Spector, 2019, p. 1).
“What the experiences of women reveal is that the biggest barrier they face is the way the music industry thinks about women. The perception of women is highly stereotypical, sexualized, and without skill. Until those core beliefs are altered, women will continue to face a roadblock as they navigate their careers” (Kelley, 2019, p. 1).
“Once again, we see a lack of female voices in popular music. However, one positive finding is that of the female performers in 2018, 73 percent were women of color. This seven-year high point reveals that the music industry is including women of color in ways that other forms of entertainment are not” (Kelley, 2019, p. 1).
Women are missing in the music industry: 22% are artists, 12.3% are songwriters, and 2% are producers. With the help of visual culture and art education, we can teach the public about these disparities and work together to close the gap.
“MAC mines the underground for artists from a variety of genres and cultural backgrounds. The campaign basically allows artists you may not have heard of yet to express their artistic vision through color statements and products” (Sciarretto, 2017, p. 1).
An inspiration for this campaign may have been the notable #OscarsSoWhite movement on social media that protested how all 20 actors nominated in the lead & supporting acting categories were white.
Abramović's performances are sad yet raise awareness in that they show how little society seems to value a woman.
Her performance art serves as her voice and her version of a song.
“It is not hard to grasp the origins of inequality, given that women were largely barred from artistic professions and training until the 1870s. Untangling the reasons that this inequality persists today is more difficult” (Brown, 2019, p. 1).
“Women’s involvement in the labor market began to surge in the 1970s, and since that time, economists and sociologists have sought to account for the differences in compensation between male and female workers.” (Brown, 2019, p. 1).
Vintage advertisements were often extremely sexist. This mindset still resonates with the underrepresentation of women in the music industry that we see today.
Although women themselves are underrepresented within the music industry, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: the fact that many famous female musicians are of color. Beyonce is one of the pioneers in this movement.
Art in the form of visual culture is a powerful tool that can be used in order to teach our students what the underrepresentation of women in the music industry says about our society and what it values. A woman deserves to be seen and to be heard in the media and beyond.
Many of our course readings focus on the relevance of the underrepresentation of marginalized groups in society, including women in the media. Our readings help us to design methods in which to teach our future students how to recognize these discrepancies and how to solve them as well within their own communities.
How have artists been dealing with this topic over time? Many artists have worked tirelessly in order to right some of the wrongs of America's sexist past. Historically, women have been portrayed in the media as submissive towards men in all spheres: from the world of politics, to life at home.
In order to further disrupt gender differences in society, prominent women in the media and the music industry use their platforms to their advantage in order to express the beauty and strength of womanhood.
As women receive less and less opportunity within the music industry, it perpetuates the antiquated ideas of gender differences that exist within our society.
I was personally invested in the world of classical music, specifically opera, for years. Firsthand experience has given me so much insight into the psychology that goes behind the underrepresentation of women in the music industry and the fact that it is simply a product of the values that are engrained within our society.
As a future educator, I believe that is it my personal responsibility to help eradicate gender divides in every aspect of our society by shaping future generations through the lives of my students. If we start teaching children from a young age the dangers of the underrepresentation of marginalized groups, we have the power to help change the music industry and the world.