Women are still severely underrepresented in New Zealand’s music industry, even though all of the finalists for the APRA premier song writing category were women.
APRA director of member services and composer Victoria Kelly says the lack of gender equality is an important issue to discuss.
Women make up 23 percent of APRA membership and Kelly says women are underrepresented in audio engineering, producing and positions of power at publishing and record companies.
Lorde Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
During her 25 year career she’s worked mostly with men who are “great artists … great friends” and collaborating with someone hasn’t been based on their gender, but it’s still an issue that needs to be addressed. “I’m cautious about disrupting the way that artists collaborate,” she says. “[But there’s] a numeric imbalance which affects the level of autonomy and authority women have in the music industry.”
Women feeling welcome in the industry has a flow-on effect. “[There’s a] sense of lacking solidarity as a female artist in that environment because you will always come up against a group of people who work a particular way together, comfortable in each other’s company and [have a] collective consciousness you don’t feel a part of because you are of a different gender.” Kelly says.
Providing a safe working environment for artists is also important, but Kelly says there are times that women feel uncomfortable which compromise their sense of safety. She says it can be hard for a young woman playing in a band at one in the morning in front of a largely intoxicated crowd. “You might feel very vulnerable in that situation,” she says. “It affects the sense of safety and comfort in the work they do and the sense of them being welcome too.”
Ultimately, it should be about creating great art with like-minded people. “At the heart of the issue is when musicians are making music together, they’re not looking at each other and deciding about how they work based on whether they are male or female or non-binary. They are making music together on the basis of being artists,” she says.
