As time passes, one can argue that the problem of discrimination has changed in certain aspects, as people of various races, religions, sexual orientations, genders, and other characteristics are no longer discriminated against. The music business, on the other hand, may not be so.
While looking at different statistics, it is clear that the music industry is still massively tilted towards men, as men appear to outnumber women in some fields. According to Statista, a 2019 report on representation and equality in the music industry found that 5% of producers were female, while 95% were men. Despite the fact that the proportion of female producers doubled between 2018 and 2019, there is still a substantial disparity between men and women in this field of work. In addition to this, female artists wrote 14.4 percent of famous songs in 2019, up from 11.6 percent in 2018.
The New York Times also claimed that the statistics on women’s participation in this industry are dismal, claiming that the figures are even lower for those who work behind the scenes. According to the Stacy L. Smith report, the figures have not improved as it looked at the top songs on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 list between 2012 and 2019, revealing that women represented 20.2 percent of performing artists of the year’s top songs.
Despite the fact that we see well-known mainstream female artists paving ways for their female peers, there is still a large gender disparity as Statista reported that female artists accounted for 11.7 percent of Grammy nominations between 2013 and 2020, while male artists accounted for 88.3 percent.
