New Figures Show How Aussie Music Industry Is Failing Women

To coincide with today's celebration of International Women's Day, triple j's Hack have crunched the numbers to determine the representation of women in the Australian music industry in regards to pay, award nominations and airplay amongst other avenues and the results show that there are still some ways to go.

The newly-released report found that just 1 in 5 women were APRA members between June 2014-June 2015, which is surprising, given that APRA AMCOS help artists get paid for their work.

With over 85,000 registered members, just 21.5% of that number are women, while they also take up just 30% of public board members on peak music bodies in the country.

All pics via ABC. Click on image for larger version.

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In regards to award nominations, the APRA's found to have the most evenly-split percentage between male and female artists (male — 54% and female 46%), while Australia's biggest awards ceremony in the ARIAs had just 1 in 3 nominations go towards a female solo artist or a group with at least one women.

Spotify Australia also confirmed that only 21 female artists feature in the top 100 most-streamed songs in Australia.

Meanwhile in this year's triple j Hottest 100, only 37 of the songs were from artists with at least one women, though none of them cracked the top ten.

When it comes to women being featured on festival line-ups, the report found that EDM events have a shockingly low percentage of female artists.

While the Splendour In The Grass and Laneway festivals found that 32% and 38% of their line-up features acts with a least one woman respectively, Listen Out and Stereosonic pulled in a percentages of just 9% and 10%.

Grammy-nominated artist and four-time ARIA winner Courtney Barnett told Hack that she believes female artists are treated much differently to men in the music industry.

"I feel like people are extra harsh or critical of female artists," Barnett said.

"I just get a couple of [comments like] ‘you play guitar as good as a man’, just casual, sexist comments.

"I have to kind of say things five times, or ask the same question five times. Whereas I know even the guys in my band, or my manager ask it once and not be questioned."

Meanwhile, APRA AMCOS' Milly Petriella admitted she was surprised by the figures.

"I was really surprised and shocked at this, when I looked at this last year," Petriella said.

"I didn't think it would be that bad, but I also didn't think there would be a lack of information out there to find out why. I didn’t expect there to be a 'this is why there isn’t women in the music industry' written on a plaque somewhere, but I really did think there would be a lot more research done than I was able to find."

Petriella went on to say the figures are even more baffling due to her belief that there is a better representation of women in music through high school students.

"And then somehow, from that point, from 18 to going into the workforce, it completely swaps around," she said.

"It’s almost like it’s 80% women when girls are younger, and in school, and it swaps around to 80% men when we’re talking about the workforce.

"Why do girls lose confidence when they’re leaving school, that they don’t enter into the music industry?"

Executive producer for the Electronic Music Conference, Jane Slingo believes the more opportunity women get in A&R departments of the music industry, the more chances female artists will have to be featured on festival line-ups, though she believes it isn't as simple as simply blaming the business.

"I think managers, agents, everyone has a role to play in this issue," Slingo said.

"I think it’s not something that we can kind of just point at awards nights or festival bookers. Because it’s a massive issue and it’s not going to change unless everyone’s on board and working hard as a community to change it."

New Figures Show How Aussie Music Industry Is Failing Women

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