It’s been a giddy few months for women in pop. If you haven’t been living in a cave, you may have heard about Miley Cyrus swinging naked on a wrecking ball, and Sinéad O’Connor’s subsequent open letter to the former child star. “The music business doesn’t give a shit about you,” O’Connor wrote. “They will prostitute you for all you are worth.”
Another former child star reacted to the Miley/Sinéad saga later – Charlotte Church, in an hour-long Peel lecture for 6 Music. The male-dominated music business had “a juvenile perspective on gender”, she railed, before slamming how acceptable this state had become. She added: “the culture of demeaning women in pop music is so ingrained as to have become routine, from the way we are dealt with by management and labels, to the way we are presented to the public.”
But behind the scenes on Planet Pop, women also work. They’re in the minority, as Church acknowledged, but they also direct videos, produce records and develop artists’ careers. Director Diane Martel may have defended her video for Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines – topless girls were in a “power position”, she said, if they stared at a camera while strutting near fully clothed men – but many other female voices haven’t been heard, until now.
As a journalist who has encountered some sexism in her own career (being directed to put more shoes and less debate in my feminist pop culture site, the Lipster, by our funders – that was fun), my conversations with these women were as fascinating as they were complex. Many praised Church’s lecture, but also acknowledged how huge and knotty her subject was; several emailed me later to clarify their positions. Any decent discussion of these issues is always difficult, I find, because women always know the criticisms and awkward questions that inevitably crop up. Hasn’t sex sold records for ever? Aren’t you prudish if you say women shouldn’t express themselves sexually? Are women being exploited by others or happily exploiting themselves? There aren’t easy answers, either.
I do know one thing, however. A year ago, I wrote a piece for the Quietus about my experience of the Rihanna marketing machine, noting that her career success was being measured not only by her sales, but by Twitter followers and video views. Similarly, this July, Miley Cyrus was delighted to get 306,000 tweets a minute during her notorious “twerking” performance with Robin Thicke at the VMAs – and didn’t seem to mind that many of them were negative. YouTube views count towards chart placings in America, and influence UK radio playlists these days, so mainstream pop’s economy is driven by one thing: hits and clicks.
The irony of this feature adding to that whirlwind is not lost on me. Neither is the fact that by focusing on the perils of lowest-common-denominator sexism, we’re ignoring the commercially successful pop women who avoid them (Emeli Sandé and Taylor Swift have outsold Rihanna this year, for example). There are other glimmers of hope in the conversations that follow too. Only by bringing different women into the mix who have had valid experiences can we broaden this debate, and lessen that juvenile perspective after all.
To find out more on the opinions of women behind the scenes, from video directors and artist managers, check out the full story here.
At Dv8 Sussex we offer Level 1, 2 & 3 courses in Music Production and a Live Events course at Level 2. Get in touch now to start your career in music!
