Women in Music - BBC Radio 4 Special

Introduction

• BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Weekend Woman's Hour: Women in Music Special Charlotte Church started out as a child star, then remembers being told frequently what she can wear in terms of body image and her job as an artist.

Backstory

• Female artists breaking out into the music landscape "in popular mainstream" such as Adele and Lady Gaga are making themselves "heard" and "much more relevant".

Backstory 2

• A lot of it is about the over-sexualisation of women in the music industry - an issue which cannot be ignored. One of the most talked about topic about women in music.

Women in a different light

• As a mother of a daughter and son, Charlotte wants to see women "in a different light" than what is expected for them at adolescence.

The three main roles of women 1

• They are mainly portrayed through the medium of the music video - "girl's girl" - a painfully reduced role. So long as they can hang out with other girls, it's possible to wave away the evils that men are doing. Commonly lauded as "empowering".

The three main roles of women 2

• "Victim/torture singer" - sexy victim e.g. Natalie Imbruglia (Torn music video) and a not-so-sexy victim. Adele does not use sexuality to sell her music videos. Someone in a perpetual state of despair.

The three main roles of women 3

• "The unattainable sexbot" - the most commonly employed and damaging stereotype of women in the music industry. Women portrayed like this are typically very young.

Adele

• English singer-songwriter Adele does not use her sexual image to sell her music records.
• Lyrically, her songs are written from the perspective of the wronged woman.

The irony of the roles

• The women generally fitting the roles are very young.
• Often previous child stars and Disney actresses, e.g. Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato.
• Simply interested in glamourisation.
• Hypersexualised, cartoonish, reducing female sexuality to a "prize you can't win".

Demeaning

• The culture of demeaning women in music is "so ingrained" as to become routined, from the way they are dealt with by management, by labels, and the way they are presented to the public.

Template setter

• Madonna frequently changed her image regularly and put her sexuality in the heart of her image, in her music videos and live performances.
• "I'm in control of me and my sexuality."

The percentage of music labels owned by women

• VRS - 13% of writers registered are female.
• Association of Independent Women 2012 membership survey - 15% music labels are owned by women.
• Writers Guild - 4%

Nicki Minaj

• The one who is famous for giving out a "pickled juice rant".
• Derided for a certain level of profession with the staff she worked with. Minaj said: "When I am assertive, I'm a bitch. When a man is assertive, he's a boss."

Annie Lennox

• Lennox called for age restrictions on "dark and pornographic music videos" - wanted them to be equally rated like films.
• X-ratings applied to the most sexually explicit music videos - sign in to confirm your age.

Should programmers take into account...?

• "There are countless examples from the last few years of songs that have been in high rotation that have little to no artistic worth but are just plain rude."
• BBC Radio is "notorious" for misreading sexual metaphor and innuendo as innocent.

Programmers continued

• "If there are no sanctions put upon music written zealously about female genitalia, or soft porn in soft promotion online, what is to stop artists feeling that making their videos and what their live performance more sexy?"
• Encourages more radio play of songs.

Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke

• Its video remains on Vimeo without any age restrictions.
• Robin Thicke's interview with GQ: his intention was "completely derogatory with women" because he respected them so much.
• "What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman!"

COntinued notes on blurred lines

• Disappointing given that Diane Martel, a woman, is the director of the Blurred Lines music video.
• "You're the train pulling everyone else along!"

Grimes

• Canadian electronic artist Grimes says: "I don't want to be infantilised because I refuse to be sexualised."