Essay Example: Gender Stereotypes In The Music Industry

The crowd is chanting as the beat of their heart pounds with acceleration. Each person gets more and more anxious as the air of the arena becomes thick with anticipation. The sound of yelling comes to the point where you can’t even hear your own thoughts. The minute the men run into the arena the crowd erupts into cheers. Suddenly, the whistle blows and the game is ready to commence. A basketball game with stands of a dedicated fan base made up of mostly men. A concert with stands of an equally dedicated fan base, but made up of mostly teen girls. What is the difference? One group is constantly mocked due to being the majority adolescent. With classic artists like that started with a great amount of female fans such as, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra, there is a lack of credit for adolescent girls and their roles in this corner of the entertainment industry. That being said, female artists, especially teen musicians, are in the same position of not getting credibility and respect due to gender. Teen girls are a vital part of the music industry, and it is time that society comes to terms with it.

When thinking about a teenage girl's interest in music, society is prone to thinking that “bubblegum pop” and boy bands are all the rave, thus, immediately taking away any image of them being serious. This stigma of not taking girls seriously due to taste in music is most recognizable during the 1950’s and 60’s, where women were seen fawning over Elvis Presely and crying in the sea of Beatlemania. All these women were considered to be under “hysterics'' for these men and their music, as shown in an archive article from 1964 where Paul Johnson wrote, “Those who flock round the Beatles, who scream themselves into hysteria, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures . . .” (Johnson). Captured in a moment where female listeners and fans became ridiculed and looked down upon at the fact they created emotional ties to music, which at the end of the day, is that not the goal for musicians? In return of women having an interest in a band or singer, they are received with articles written toward them being hysterical.  The word hysteria is derived from the Greek word uterus and commonly used “during an era when patriarchal culture felt itself to be under attack by its rebellious daughters, one obvious defense was to label women [. . .] as mentally disturbed,” (Espach). The misogynistic term is continuously used generation after generation whenever someone shows an excessive amount of emotion toward something. Although many refer to the term without any knowledge of the history of the word, the placement of the wording is when issues arise.

When referring to a group of girls who are fans of any particular artist, the word “fangirl” comes to mind for most. With this being said, fangirls are most commonly associated with the previously mentioned term “hysterical”. These are the teens who are seen at a Harry Styles concert, crying from glee and enjoying their time with music that connects to them like no other. More often than not, women are shamed for their choice of favorite artist and music when in reality there is no right choice for them to answer. Take for example, if a teenage girl today were to say The Beatles are her favorite band, the opposite sex would gatekeep the classic rock group and consider them not true enough for them to be fans. Though were teenage girls not the ones to be pushed down in the 60’s for having an adoration for the British band? This can be said with any interest a girl may have. “This “trend” of shaming and belittling the interests of teenage girls reinforces a subconscious ideology from a very young age that their opinions aren’t good enough or valid […]” (McLaughlin). Girls in today's age are at a point where they are ashamed to express their interest in fear of judgment and ridicule from the opposite gender when in reality, what is so different from a man being a fan of a sports team? At the end of the day they are not so different from each other, both ends enjoying a pastime that provides pleasure, it is all cognitive and has all to do with how we think and feel.  “[...] our brain’s mesolimbic system which governs our likes and wants can sometimes reinforce fangirling due to the nature of rewards, much like how neurotransmitters secrete hormones that make us happy, ultimately it comes down to how it makes us feel.” (Team)

Women musicians are also in the position of being trashed upon due to the simple fact that they are female. Household names like Ariana Grande, Britney Spears, Olivia Rodrigo and many more who started as teens in their career are put through the ringer for their quality of art. At the age of 16, Taylor Swift released her debut album which allowed her boost into stardom. Swift then released her second album Fearless, at the age of 18 but was heavily criticized. Due to her young age, critics claimed that she did not write her own songs. In a 2019 interview with The Rolling Stones, Swift stated, "I’ve had several upheavals in my career. When I was 18, they were like, 'She doesn’t really write those songs.' So my third album I wrote by myself as a reaction to that," (Hiatt). The album she refers to is Speak Now, which according to The Daily News, sold a million copies in a week with 11 songs charting on the Billboard Top 100, something that at the time only The Beatles were able to achieve (Benigno). Similarly, at the age of 17, rock and roll icon Joan Jett started the rock band, The Runaways. The band consisted of only females where they later fell victim to the attacks of older men. In a timeline article of Jett’s life Grunge.com describes, “Sexist magazine headlines like "Teenage, Wild, and Braless" and "Lissome Lolitas or Teenage Trash?" [which] focused on their youth, gender, and looks instead of their music,...” (Corday). These women eventually took on the role as influential musicians for their generations, despite the disrespect given for the sheer fact they picked up a guitar and created music, something thought that only “men” can do well.

Understanding the double standard of how women are treated within a male dominated industry is just scratching the surface of misogyny in the world of music. A constant push and pull is in motion when comparing two artists of the opposite sex. As seen before, when a young woman plays an instrument, produces music, or writes lyrics, they are either not taken seriously enough and are looked at in wonder as if it was not done before. Why is it a surprise that a woman can play guitar and write her own lyrics? Because of this it has become hard for a rising female artist to be employed. In a 2019 investigative report led by Dr. Stacy L. Smith, researchers looked at artists and charts from 2012-2018 and studied “the gender and race of the industry’s core professions.” (Kelley).  The Forbes article goes on to describe that, “women make up 21.7 percent of artists, 12.3 percent of songwriters and 2.1 percent of producers.” (Kelley). The more society continues to discredit the talent women can carry musically, the more they become discouraged to continue in the career path. Discouragement is not the only factor, record executives are choosing not to sign female artists to their label. For instance in 2017, Maybach Music Group signed 6 artists, 0 of which were women, and 300 Entertainment signed 47 artists, only 6 were women (Pearce).

Although women do not need validation from male colleagues, a great deal of them do not agree with the unjust treatment of women who work in the industry or are consumers of music. Former the White Stripes frontman, Jack White, is amongst those in favor of pushing female artists and fans to the front, claiming,

It’s sort of a real shame that if a woman goes onstage with an instrument – a guitar or drums or something – that it’s almost a novelty to people, like ‘Oh isn’t that cute?’ The ultimate shame of it is that girls have to work twice as hard to really prove themselves. . .they’re really putting it into proving what’s going on there a lot of the time, because they’re put in a position where they have to. (Nguyen)

Evidently there’s a self awareness among musicians of the clear oppression of female artists. With this said, there’s still a refusal of accepting young women into a world of music. Take for example, 19 year old Olivia Rodrigo. With the release of her debut album Sour she has been able to attract a demographic of teenage girls, accumulating over 2.69 billion streams on Spotify making it the most streamed album of 2021 according to Uproxx. Nevertheless, in a story known all too well, critics were quick to drag the singer for writing songs about boys and teenage heartbreak. In an interview with The Guardian, Rodrigo responded to the criticism simply stating, “I’m a teenage girl. I write about stuff that I feel really intensely [. . .] I don’t really understand what people want me to write about; do you want me to write a song about income taxes?” (Snapes). Music is an outlet where artists should be allowed to talk about their true feelings, tell their stories. With this in mind, why do we invalidate a teen girl's experience because of their stance in culture? Meanwhile, male artists like Ed Sheeran are being praised for the ability to be vulnerable within their music, where they touch on the same topic as their female counterparts. There is an obvious double standard when it comes to the work of a man or woman in this particular line of work, one that crosses the line of being unfair and contributes to misogyny instead.