How Female DJs and Producers Narrowed the Gender Gap in Electronic Dance Music: Strategies and Campaign that have been Successful in the Last Decade

Abstract

A voice is missing from the electronic dance music (EDM) industry: whether in prominent festival line-ups like Tomorrowland and the Ultra Music Festival, or press that features achievements of top music stars, women are underrepresented. Indeed, the EDM industry has long been male-dominated and permeated with gender imbalance. Only until the last decade did the gender gap begin to close: since 2012, investigations examining gender ratio and female artist participation at music festivals have reported an ascending trend of female producers/DJs. Through analyses of past interviews with women musicians and other sources of documentation that shed light on their experiences, this research investigates the possible factors that contributed to the gender imbalance in the EDM industry, as well as the strategies that female producers/DJs developed to work against the gender disadvantages. Hopefully, through exploring the ways that women worked to overcome gender barriers, this research casts light on real solutions that address gender discrimination and sexism in the EDM industry, and thereby help to make other industries that have pronounced gender gap more diverse.