Background to Women Make Music

The creation of our Women Make Music funding opportunity followed a discussion panel we presented in May 2010 in collaboration with Birds Eye View – an organisation that celebrates and supports international women film makers.

We wanted to draw attention to the gender gap between men and women music creators and to explore how we could better support women who are making new music.

The Facts:

• the PRS for Music membership (writers and music creators) is currently only 17% women. Up from 13% in 2010**
• in its 18-year history the Mercury Prize has been awarded to only five women.*
• just 4.1% of works performed at the 2010 BBC Proms were composed by women.*

Links

Relevant articles in recent press about the gender gap in music include:

• Gender Equality in Music: The Beginnings of a New Movement Involving Men and Women – Vanessa Reed our Executive Director, discusses the positive action being taken to address the gender imbalance in the music industry
• What a Difference a Day Makes… But Is It Enough for 3.6bn Women? – Vanessa Reed discusses the importance of fighting for gender equality all year round.
• Beth Orton Tackles Lack of Women in the Music Industry – BBC write-up on Manchester-based project to address the challenges women face in the industry.
• Just why are there so few female artists on music festival line-ups? – New Statesman article by Stephanie Boland about the staggering lack of gender diversity in music festival line-ups.
• Supporting women in the music business – Andreea Magdalina, of Mixcloud and SheSaid.So on supporting women in the music business and the industry’sshifting power base
• Women in the Music Business: Mind the Gender Gap – Lara Baker, organiser of the AIM Independent Music Awards, talks about the gender gap in the music industry and inspiring women.
• The Musical Gender Gap – Our Executive Director wades into the classical music storm surrounding female conductors and creators, and assesses the gender gap across all musical genres.
• Women composers: Notes from the musical margins – Fiona Maddocks discusses how female composers are an exception, but growing in number, in the Observer, 13th March 2011
• Feminism: What does the F-word mean today? Annie Lennox chairs a discussion for International Women’s Day with Beverley Knight and VV Brown amongst others in the Observer, 6th March 2011.
• EQUALS? Join the big inequality debate – a partnership of leading charities brought together by Annie Lennox to celebrate the centenary of International Women’s Day.
• Helienne Lindvall of the Guardian writing about our May 2010 discussion panel.
• Christopher Fox highlighting the gender gap in his Guardian article about the 2010 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
• UK Feminista have some very revealing statistics about how ‘Women continue to be under-represented in British cultural life’.
• Jon Jacob’s Throroughly Good podcast – from our 11th March 2011 launch event – features interviews with Birds Eye View’s Founder & Director, Rachel Millward, and our very own Executive Director, Vanessa Reed

*BBC Proms and Mercury Music Prize statistics from UK Feminista
**PRS for Music statistics from PRS for Music