“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can/Wondering if I’d get there quicker/If I was a man/And I’m so sick of them coming at me again/’Cause if I was a man/Then I’d be the man.”
These are lyrics from Taylor Swift’s song “The Man” where she depicts the hypocrisy of how women are treated compared to men in the music industry. Swift later states, “They’d say I hustled, put in the work/They wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve.”
Women in music are constantly invalidated for the effort they’ve put into making a name for themselves. The stigma of females writing breakup songs tends to follow every woman in the industry. Alongside Swift, record-breaking artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Joni Mitchell, Ariana Grande, Adele, Stevie Nicks, and many more are prime examples of this double standard.
Female artists are significantly underrepresented in their work. They can write the same songs a man can and not get the same level of recognition for it. Currently, the pinnacle of this example would be Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift. The general public doubts both women’s skills because they are “only famous for writing breakup songs.” On the other hand, artists like Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, and countless others who do the same thing aren’t held to that same standard. Nobody questions their musical dexterity and how they have gotten to their level of fame. The public has also started a rumor that Taylor Swift is a witch, and that is the only reason she has her level of fame. People will come up with anything to discredit women and their achievements.
Even as I began research for this article, others who have written about gender stereotypes in the music industry only mentioned and praised men for their attempt toward change. Names including Prince, Michael Jackson, and David Bowie were the only ones to come up in my feed. As iconic as these three men were, they weren’t the only ones to push for a change. They weren’t the ones to start the movement toward a better societal view on gender equality in artists’ work.
This general viewpoint has become toxic as it creates the idea that women need to be more than extraordinary to be seen professionally. In an interview for Allure, Billie Eilish voiced her stance on the topic, saying, “…but the thing is, people should know — women should know — you don’t have to be exceptional… you can just be a person and should get awards for just being.” Eilish is just one of millions of women to feel this way. Taylor Swift also shared her experience as a young woman in a male-dominated industry. She tells Vogue magazine, “Men in the industry saw me as a kid. I was a lanky, scrawny, overexcited, young girl who reminded them more of their little niece or their daughter than a successful woman in business or a colleague.” Although she’d been a victim of this complex for years, Swift had never noticed it until she quit molding herself to what people wanted her to be and began speaking up for herself to those who condemned her booming success.
Although women do great things all the time, when they become dramatized in the media, it’s to bring a negative light to them. There is article after article written about the latest plastic surgery they’ve undergone, why they shouldn’t have gotten it, who they’re dating, what they’re wearing, how their music is “unoriginal,” and criticizing how they’ve gotten to where they are. However, there never seems to be anything written about the time they’ve dedicated, the work they’ve put in, the charities they’ve helped, their remarkable ability to change lives, and the positive impact they’ve made through their music and social media.
As much as I would like to finish this by saying that we can change the way women are viewed in this aspect, I’d be lying because we can’t. There are always going to be people who continue to not take women seriously, credit men for women’s work, and write about why women shouldn’t be portrayed in a positive light. Women are going to continue to feel that they need to overcompensate for the lack of support from others. The only way for us to make a change is to change our own perspective and be the backbone for those who are being put down. Continue to share the positives in every situation, and don’t let close-minded people hold us back from achieving our own goals and dreams.
