In this seminar which took place online on 12 May 2022, Professor Samantha Parsley (University of Portsmouth) and Dr Marjana Johansson (University of Glasgow) presented their recent paper which explores gender-based discrimination in the electronic music industry. Based on data collected for a larger project on women DJ producers, the paper takes as its starting point the gendered conditions, characteristics and lived experience of work in the cultural industries. Specifically, the paper examines the invisible labour that women artists perform as they negotiate opportunities and manage their reputation and careers in this male-dominated creative occupation. The paper introduces the concept ‘ameliorative work’ to analyse both individual and collective efforts by women to survive and thrive in the industry. In so doing it responds to recent initiatives to increase gender diversity in the music industry and highlights a sector of the creative industries that has so far received limited research attention.
You can watch the full recording here;