Closing the Gender Gap in Music Technology at the Undergraduate Level

The world of music technology is constantly changing and adapting. However when it comes to gender equality, the world of music technology is far behind. Men have dominated the industry of music tech since its dawn until today. There are many obstacles that keep women and nonbinary people from being successful in music technology. A part of the problem is just how staggering the numbers are, some statistics estimate that 98% of producers are men. However, too much focus on the numbers only further cements how out of place women are in music tech. Now that there is widespread knowledge of the issue, attention must be shifted towards how to solve this problem. Martial changes can be made, and many have already been proven to dramatically help the issue. In this presentation I will be addressing how we can help solve problems women face in music tech at an undergraduate level. I have drawn my research from previous efforts to diversify various STEM fields, and from efforts already made within the field of Music Tech itself. I will be making suggestions for changes that undergraduate programs can make to help combat the problems that keep women out of tech. The three issues I will be focusing on are the pipeline problem, a lack of mentorship, and a lack of education geared towards women‘s specific needs.

Women are vastly underrepresented in the field of music and technology. In this presentation I’ll be addressing how we can help solve the problems that women face in music tech at an undergraduate level. My research will be drawn from previous efforts to diversify fields in stem and previous efforts in the field of music and Technology itself. I’ll be making suggestions for changes that undergraduate programs can make to help combat the problems that keep women out of tech. The three issues that I’ll be focusing on are the pipeline problem a lack of mentorship and a lack of Education geared towards women’s specific needs. Where we currently stand is a pretty bad spot. As of 2022 only 2% of producers aren’t men and only 12.9% of songwriters aren’t men. No woman has ever won producer of the earth Grammys and no woman was nominated this year either. The first issue that women in music technology face starts at a really young age, it’s called the pipeline problem. It stems from run-of-the-mill sexism that convinces women that their place is not in stem Fields, especially technology. Most music tech programs focus on the technological aspect when advertising their courses and programs instead of the aesthetic aspects of Music Technology. This steers women away from enrolling in these courses and programs. Here at GMU a way that we can help this is by offering Outreach programs for high schoolers and middle schoolers. The College of science here alone has four different outreach programs for underrepresented groups. These have proven to be incredibly successful. The University of Michigan was able to raise their incoming freshman class in the College of per Performing Arts Technology (PAT) from 20% female to 40% female after offering a summer outreach program called girls in music and Technology. Our next issue is lack of mentorship most college professors are CIS white men and the field of Music Tech is no different. An excuse often given for why there are no female instructors is a lack of qualified candidates and while this is true it speaks to the bigger issue at hand and should not be the end of the conversation but the beginning of one. In the meantime a way to give women role models at the educational level is by bringing in guest speakers and peer mentorship programs. Peer mentorship programs have proven very successful. There is a peer mentorship program at Berkeley called she knows Tech in which five graduate students agreed to Mentor four undergraduate students each for a total of seven mentoring sessions. A year later almost half were in Tech related Majors. My final Focus will be on how we can change the education itself that is offered to help combat issues that women specifically face. A thing that I found particularly compelling was how much the language around how we advertise courses affects women’s enrollment in them. I like to think of it as purpose versus tool language. Women are more likely to be interested in courses that emphasize the purpose of what they are learning rather than the literal tool itself. A computer science program saw a massive uptick in female enrollment when they changed the course title from intro to HTML to building socially responsible websites. This could be implemented in music and Technology by instead of naming courses things like “introduction to Protools” naming them “independently record and edit a song.” Another positive change would be doing away with weed out courses. Women are already taught that they do not belong in music and technology and they do not need to be met first thing with courses that are specifically designed to push people away. Another thing that has been proven successful in stem field is by having introductory courses split up by different experience levels. This could be particularly effective in music tech considering the wide range of experience that students come in with. While all of the statistics can be disheartening they should not be the focus. We know that women are underrepresented in music and Technology but focusing on how wildly large the gender gap is only reinforces the idea at the end of the day that women do not belong in Tech. These are real problems with real solutions, however diversity does not happen by accident but instead through real concerted efforts. If institutions are serious about making changes they should make their efforts known and public. there are many resources to find out about successful women in music technology such as Sound Girls and the Women’s Audio Mission. They provide databases of vetted and experienced female audio Engineers so no one has the excuse anymore that they just don’t know any women audio Engineers. Undergraduate programs are in a unique position to affect the industry as a whole because they are the final stop for many of us before we enter our professional careers. The values that students learn in undergrad they will take with them for the rest of their careers. If these programs show that they do not value women neither will the engineers that leave them.