There is a gender gap in music too.
These are the numbers of the gender gap in Italian and international music:
in the top 20 of the best-selling records in Italy in 2021 only one female artist
;
among the authors registered with the major European collecting societies, the authors represent on average 16%;
the musicians are worth 14.1% of the total number of artists present in the Spotify charts in Italy;
the musicians are 58.4%, while the bands 27.5%;
in Italy, out of a sample of 389,219 musical recordings, the roles of primary interpreters for women are 8.32%, against 91.68% for men;
in the Billboard chart of the 100 most successful songs between 2012 and 2020, women accounted for only 2.6% of producers.
Discouraging numbers
, which suggest some positive trends for the next few years.
An example:
looking at the Spotify rankings, in the last 4 years the number of under-30 Italian artists has grown
.
At the moment 59% of the artists present in the singles chart are under 30, a demographic that has had a higher percentage of growth than men, thanks to the new generations.
And speaking of new generations after launching the first round of calls, Italia Music Lab took a look at the numbers: the artists represented on average 23.3% of the candidates, but surprisingly 51.9% of the winners.
A sign that
the musicians who come forward have more valid and structured projects on average.
A figure that is also confirmed by the Nuovo Imaie study, according to which from only 7.44% of primary roles played by women in the sample of songs considered, the economic value generated is more than double, equal to 16.78%.
Finally, looking abroad, the data reported by Female Pressure's annual "FACTS" report are interesting: the amount of artists present in the lineup of electronic music festivals around the world has grown from 9% in 2012 to 27% in the 2020- 2021.
Larger festivals tend to have a smaller percentage of female artists in lineup, as opposed to publicly funded and director-led festivals.
For a more representative, more inclusive music industry, which takes into account all diversities while respecting everyone, the Italia Music Lab Foundation announces a series of measures with the aim of reducing the gender gap and discrimination in Italian music.
First of all, two new collaborations: a partnership with Equaly, an Italian company that deals with gender equality within the music business and the sponsorship of Keychange, an initiative co-financed by the European Union that is transforming the future of international music.
In fact
, in the Italian music industry women are only 27% among artists, 12.5% among composers and 2.6% in production.
How is the disparity experienced by those who are part of the industry?
How can it be overcome?
The data shows that things are changing: where is the process?
We are inclined to think of
music as a form of entertainment.
In reality it is also one of the most powerful cultural industries:
on the one hand, a professional context within which to imagine the development of one's career;
on the other hand, an integral part of the system of construction and distribution of meanings, of social representations, of ways of interpreting the world.
The music business is therefore a cross-section of the logic and policies of the world of work
, with some peculiarities that make it even more deconstructed and liquid than other professional contexts.
In the same way it is a sphere of culture, where one can observe more or less opaque mechanisms of managing the power to guide the readings of the world and expectations about it.
"Women in Creative Industries" - The gender gap in the Italian music industry (ed. FrancoAngeli) written by the psychologist and PhD in Communication and new technologies,
Alessandra Micalizzi,
SAE teacher looks at music as the terrain of gender disparities, trying to keep together this double soul, of industry and cultural forge, observing it through the gaze of those who have made it a profession.
The gender gap is framed in a socio-cultural framework, to also interpret the psycho-social mechanisms responsible for the sensational exclusion - or limited participation - of women in cultural production, with particular regard to music.
The conclusions leave room for a calm optimism towards the future, thanks to the generational change and the gradual unhinging of gender as a variable through which to read the world and its rules.
There is also a small certainty: change can be definitive and real only if culturally assimilated and "participated".