Too Young, Too Old: When Will Our Women In Music Be Enough

Today is International Women’s Day, and while I am thrilled by the spotlight celebrating the extraordinary female and gender diverse artists across this country, I want to take this opportunity while I have your ears because this conversation should not be isolated to just one day a year.

While I have never been an artist or a professional musician, music is my lifeblood like so many of you out there. Yet from my short time in this industry, what I see happening to our women in music every day is something that can simply not be swept under the rug tomorrow.

"Who decided in radio that a woman at a certain point in her life no longer becomes viable? Women and men of all ages have something interesting to say... we will decide when it's time for us to stop." - Tina Arena

In a world where the circles of highest-earning artists are dominated by men, or where the commercial foundation of female artists has been built on objectification and constant reinvention, gender equality in music is a mountain we are still climbing.

"I think music is a great equalizer... We need to value the lives, & respect the lives & bodies of everyone who is making it. Nobody should be mattering more than anyone else." - Jess Hopper

We’ve all heard the pay gap stats. The sea of male faces steering the ship. But this is way bigger than numbers. This is about the stories that are silenced from those fighting their way forward in an industry whose gendered roots are still firmly planted.

“I’m so disappointed in these white men that are running our country, and I feel like all the women in our country are endlessly disappointed by them.” - Missy Higgins

Because it’s 2022, and our artists simply deserve more.

They deserve their performances to be praised before their appearances.

They deserve their ages to be honoured as the accumulation of invaluable experience, and not treated as impending expiry dates.

They deserve the legitimacy of their music to not be diminished in male-dominated genres. 

It should just be normal and not “groundbreaking” for women of all backgrounds and intersecting identities to see themselves represented across all levels of power. 

Wouldn’t you agree that these all seem like pretty base-level requests? Stuff we shouldn’t even be having to ask for? And yet, here we are, in 2022, still having to scream to be seen.

“A woman gets to a certain age, it becomes too hard... Australian rock offers a longer career for males.” - Christine Anu

I believe that for all us music lovers, we have a huge role to play in setting a fairer stage for marginalised artists. As a community, we need to acknowledge the agist, misogynist beliefs that have been ingrained into the consumption of music since the beginning. We need to look to our female artists with pride and not erase them the second they cap 27. Just last week, Charli XCX, a woman of 29 - dare I say it - was slammed on Twitter for her latest music video appearing to be a “mid-life crisis” all for… dancing and looking stunning? A couple of hours ago, some of the most renowned female artists of this country shared an open letter to the Minister for the Arts calling for Double J, one of the only radio stations in the country to have music from female artists over 30 in persistent high rotation, to allow their reach broadened from digital-only to an FM frequency.

While I know these sickening double standards can feel immovable, or that this sort of change can seem so far out of reach, we have the opportunity right now to spark these conversations. So if I can ask anything, it is that today, and every day until March 8 rolls along again next year, we take the chance to consciously reflect on the artists we choose to celebrate, and to talk about how we can play our own part in forging a future of gender equality in music.