Where Is She? Finding the Women in Electronic Music Culture

Abstract

The author discusses the visibility and participation of women in electronic music culture. She argues that most electronic music social networks privilege male inclusion and success, and that skill-sharing is an important strategy to encourage women in the field. To seed this discussion, the author examines her own history with reflections on the gender dynamics within electronic music communities outside the academy, and the role that social and technical currencies play within them. She also discusses Ladies club, a music distribution project that led to several solo female electronic musicians taking the stage and organising events in Montreal during 2007.

Keywords:

• Electronic Music
• Feminism
• Gender
• Culture
• Skills-Sharing

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] Electric Indigo. About female:pressure. female:pressure. Retrieved May 01, 2015, from http://www.femalepressure.net/fempress.html

[2] This discouraging trend has been documented by many, including popular blogs Crack in the Road and SheKnows. See Dalton (2015) and Cannon (2015).

[3] An informal survey completed by Ksenia Pestova in 2013 counted 110 women and 327 men listed as faculty on the websites of UK Universities: see Pestova (2013).

[4] Miley Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer, while Amanda Palmer is an American musician well known for her work with the Dresden Dolls, a pioneering band in the ‘dark cabaret’ genre.

[5] This question was directly posed to me by Bevin Kelley, performing artist Blevin from Blechdom.

[6] Nurse With Wound.

[7] The hippocampus, associated with memory and verbalisation, is larger and more developed in girls’ brains, while boys’ develop the cortical area, related to spatial-mechanical functioning. Gurian and Stevens (2004) claim that this developmental difference, along with others in the corpus callosum and increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, lead girls towards ‘stimulants—like reading and writing—that involve complex texture, tonality, and mental activity’ while boys are drawn to ‘watching and manipulating objects that move through physical space and understanding abstract mechanical concepts’.

[8] With the exception of crafts, the production of which is traditionally female dominated and which are often used as a means of social gathering.

[9] Studio XX (2015). Studio XX’s Mandate. Studio XX: Femmes + Art + Technologie + Société | Women + Art + technology + Society. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://www.studioxx.org/en/mandat.

[10] Arcmtl (2015). distroboto -> About. Retrieved April 5, 2016, from http://www.distroboto.com.

[11] Girls’ Rock Camp Alliance (2015). About GRCA. Girls’ Rock Camp Alliance. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://girlsrockcampalliance.org.

[12] Thorpe and Jones (2015, May 24). Help TECHNE Teach Electronic Music This Summer! TECHNE modular workshops in music technology and improvisation. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://technesound.org/2015/05/24/help-techne-teach-electronic-music-this-summer.

[13] see http://technesound.org, last accessed March 2016.

[14] New York University (2015). Department of Music and Performing Arts: Girls Electronic Music Seminar (GEMS). NYU STEINHARDT. Retrieved April 5, 2016, from http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/music/summer/gems.