Entrenched Anti-Female Bias in the Global Music Industry

It seems like the MeToo movement has finally hit the pop music industry. The grassroots criticism of how male managers and guardians of young pop stars like Britney Spears that have been brewing for years and decades have now re-emerged as society reexamines the power dynamic of the entertainment industry, with older men in power abusing their power to overwhelmingly benefit, both financially and sexually, from the hard work of female workers. As the world comes to acknowledge and be appalled by the behavior of Harvey Weinstein and his associates over the course of decades, there is a growing call for other men to come forward with their misdeeds.

Some men in the music industry indeed have heeded the call. Justin Timberlake, for instance, has made public statements expressing his remorse at how he treated Britney Spears and Janet Jackson during decades of collaboration and romantic relationships. Other less prominent individuals in the music industry have in their own ways attempted to shift their behaviors to take note of popular sentiment against male dominance in the MeToo era, paving way for more female representation and control of not just on-screen front stage female presence, but also the much more important roles of strategic decision making over how music is produced and distributed.

While there is no doubt that the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and decision-making has the effect of maintaining male dominance over the music industry over the past decades, it is unlikely the only reason for female stars and backstage workers to suffer. How pop music itself is shaped to present and represent women on screen and in the popular imagination has just as much impact on the unequal status of the sexes. Popular demand for music with lyrics and videos that prominently put female stars in the role of sex symbols has led the public to accept and encourage further sexualization of women in music.

Reviewing lyrics from pop songs in the 1990s and early 2000s, for instance, reveal that putting down women as objects of sexual desire was largely a norm that was not only not frowned upon but became a genre in itself. The culture surrounding rap and hip-hop music, in particular, has shown particular tendencies to directly express the male desire for sexual fulfillment in a way that is driven by unequal power, which is ironic because the same genre has often railed against the unchecked power of law enforcement and government authorities as a source of social malaise.

Unfortunately, the same tendency continues to manifest itself in the global pop music industry. The global popularity of K-pop often has a dark underside that revolves around the presentation of young women in skimpy outfits and provocative dances. K-pop has, in such a way, became not only about music but the visuals, often of a sexual nature. As K-pop succeeds around the world, its way of presenting women on screen is spreading throughout the world, even to cultures where formerly the representation of women in public is largely unacceptable. 

In other words, whatever the MeToo movement has done to empower women in the music industry to speak out about the abuses they suffered, their positive effect is still being undermined by a long history of producing popular content that puts down women, in the past, present, and through globalization, likely a future mainstay as well in many places around the world. The likes of Justin Timberlake apologizing for his behavior only reveals a tip of an iceberg that is still growing bigger, allowing male individuals in power to speak out with facing serious power shifts that can undermine their positions.

Changing the continued undermining of females in the music industry based on still popular sexualization of female musicians will remain difficult, but some ideas are worth exploring. The demand for sexualizing women, whether it be music or not direct pornography, will always exist as a genre of media content. But they can be compartmentalized as to not affect the overall cultural shift toward gender equality. Regulations can be put in place not just to limit when and where sexualized content can be broadcast and require their producers to publicly undertake measures to empower their female employees, to delink sexuality with the lack of gender equality.

To make the regulations stick, authorities coming up with them should employ more people who are experienced with the negative effect of gender inequality. This is not simply about putting more females in the position of power, but creating mechanisms that allow those with access to public opinion to monitor the behavior of music industry insiders, so that the possibility of negative publicity from unacceptable behaviors can act as a credible deterrent that restrains their desire to keep women down in the workplace. Males making public apologies are a good first step but those apologies should not be used as a publicity stunt but as precursors of more systemic changes in how males and females interact in the music industry.