Misogyny in Music: Actors, Business, and Law

In 2022, the UK Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee started an inquiry into “Misogyny in Music” (Details of the inquiry: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6736/misogyny-in-music/ .) responding to the increasing awareness of intersectional gendered hardships experienced by women and gender-diverse artists in the music sector. The overwhelming evidence of the alarming state of misogyny in the music industries can no longer be ignored, and the various aspects of lived gender discrimination should no longer be left to self-regulation within the music industries. This chapter will follow this parliamentary inquiry, whilst also offering a literature overview and existing evidence across several jurisdictions (UK, US, Australia, Norway, Finland, Germany (and potentially others)), to clearly make the argument that women and gender-expansive artists are discriminated against in the music sector. The authors offer a multidisciplinary overview of the ways in which the patriarchy of the music industries is maintained and, when needed, enforced through misogyny (Relying on Mann’s model: Kate Mann, Down Girl; The Logic of Misogyny (Penguin, 2018)). After the introduction of the existing evidence, the chapter focuses its investigation on three areas: first, mapping the relations, stakeholders, and actors (organisations and individuals) in the music industries. Second, the chapter investigates the accepted precarious employment practices and asymmetric power dynamics in music and the behaviours this supports, including bullying and harassment, and explaining why matters in music are more alarming than in other parts of society. And third, the chapter explores the role of intellectual property laws (esp. copyright) in maintaining the intersectional gender hardships lived by women and gender-diverse people. In its conclusion, the authors offer an overview of best practices and suggest principles for future reform and improvement in the sector.