In the Danish music industry there is 43 % women and 47 % non-binary who have experienced discrimination. In itself the numbers are disturbingly high and compared to the 9 % of men who have experienced dicrimination, it doesn’t get better. No matter if the statistics are categorized by ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation – it is always the minorities who are overly represented.
The music industry has to seek out information from scientists and organizations like Another Life. Representation is not some god given right – it is something we need to work at together. And it is something that the panel at the seminar ‘How do we change the representation’ points out multiple times: you have to change a lot to make sure that you have a balanced representation of employees.
The room was filled and most of the audience were young people. In a matter of only 45 minutes the panel ranged wide and far and noted that as a community diversity and representation is a complex affair. But that shouldn’t stop us from talking about how we improve the industry.
The organization Another Life are the ones behind the seminar. The two founders, Sofie Westh and Rosa Lois, launched the project in March 2021. At the seminar Sofie Westh told about Another Life’s rapport: “There are structures which don’t accommodate minorities in the music business. We’re talking about an existing toxic culture.” The entire room nodded recognizing and the debate turned to what concretely can be done in a fluffy and fleeing industry.
Tess S. Skadegård Thorsen is a scientist and has among other things looked into discrimination in the film industry. She explained that in Denmark there is a tendency to understanding discrimination in a way where is it up to the individuals to lift the challenges in the industry. We think that we have to be more empathetic but it is more about understanding the power positions that decide and act. You have to investigate who decides what and which positions in the industry they have.
All panelists agreed that change needs to happen from the top. The genre organization SNYK and the business Live Nation make actions and educational processes towards information about discrimination and how to avoid it. But if change is to be made it is important that the leaders in the industry also participate.
In the music industry most employees work their way up which also means that when you one day reach the top, you don’t have an actual leader education. So you can consider whether it would be smart to set up some sort of mentorship program or continuing education – just to point out a few suggestions from the debate.
And as a closing thought it was funny that when you think about how male dominated the music industry is, you wonder where all these men are when a theme like this is a topic at the only music conference in Denmark.
Photo: Malthe Roland