INDIE INSIDER
How Do We Make the Music Industry Fairer for Women ?
A Conversation with Women in Music Canada ’ s Samantha Slattery
By Michael Raine
SAMANTHA SLATTERY , FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF WOMEN IN MUSIC CANADA
These are interesting and potentially transformative times for women ’ s rights . January ’ s Women ’ s March was the largest protest in American history , with sister marches in cities and towns across the globe – including one that drew more than 60,000 people in Toronto – while issues like pay discrepancies , misogynistic corporate cultures , and equal opportunity hiring practices are now in the mainstream conversation .
The music industry is not immune to the inequality that faces many women in the workforce . In fact , and sadly , the music industry has had a reputation as one of the most misogynistic industries to work in for decades , and Canada is not exempt from this .
While progress has been made on some fronts , there is still a lot of work to do . For this reason , Canadian Musician caught up with the founder of Women in Music Canada , Samantha Slattery , to discuss the unique issues and challenges that women face in the Canadian music industry and how we can work together and collectively address them .
Canadian Musician : If you compare the Canadian music industry of 2017 to 2007 or 1997 , are there areas of significant improvement or regression in terms equal treatment and opportunity for women ?
Samantha Slattery : My initial thought is it ’ s relatively unchanged , or I would argue that it ’ s actually possibly regressed somewhat . My reason for that is you see a lot fewer women leading major companies now . [ In the early 2000s ] you ’ d have Lisa [ Zbitnew , former CEO of Sony BMG Music Canada ] and Denise [ Donlon , former president of Sony Music Canada ] and heads of major organizations were women . You ’ re seeing that less and less now …
[ But I think it ’ s starting to shift back in our favour ] and I wonder partly , too , with these things that are happening , like the Women ’ s March and so forth , I am seeing a lot of this as a reaction . I think there is going to be another wave of interest and focus and I ’ m seeing it among my younger peers , where there is definitely a lot more engagement and awareness of the differences and the discrepancies and where there is a lack of equality in the industry . So I am hopeful , and while I feel like it may have shifted back a bit , it ’ s going to start to swing the other way now .
CM : What have you found regarding pay equity in the Canadian music industry ?
SS : So the annual salaries of women in the music industry , when we did our survey [ of women in the Ontario music industry in 2014 ], were roughly 27 per cent lower than the average . So bearing in mind how we define this , we looked at the average for men and for women and then women alone were 27 per cent less … So , unfortunately , the industry is actually worse than the national average . That ’ s definitely something that we , as an organization , are really trying to address and work out why that ’ s the case and how we go about trying to change that .
CM : Your survey also pointed out that over half of women said there wasn ’ t a single woman in the executive tier of their company . How do we address that opportunity gap ?
SS : Another quick stat to throw in that ’ s even more shocking is that of the 104 named executive positions , just 23 per cent were held by women . So , when you go to that next level , it ’ s even worse …
As an organization , we ’ re trying to look at it from a number of angles as far as what we think , practically , is really going to make a difference . The first one we ’ re doing , which
I sometimes get a bit of slack for but I think is the right approach still , I still stand by that , is we need to look internally , first , as a group . What we ’ re finding , for example , is when a woman applies for a job , she needs to feel like she is 100 per cent qualified before she ’ ll even submit a résumé , whereas a man , on average , needs to feel like he is about 60 per cent qualified . So there are things like that whereby we ’ re sort of doing ourselves a disservice because we ’ re not even putting our hand up or , to quote Sheryl Sandberg , “ leaning in .” So we need to be prepared to step up and push for those roles and push for life balance and make these jobs work for us .
Another one is self-education , which is a big one for us . We have a lot of educational panels we ’ re doing , whether it ’ s Grants 101 and we just ran a production engineering workshop with six of the top female producer / engineers in the country . The Harris Institute was kind enough to give us space and we made this a free education series for women so they could start to educate themselves on production / engineering and how to go about finding a job and at least get the baseline knowledge so that they felt they could go into a studio and not feel silly .
We need to be able to advocate for ourselves and for each other . So that ’ s one part of it , and we also need to learn about what ’ s out there , like what grants are out there . We apply for grants in shockingly low numbers compared to men . Why is that ?
One of the things I don ’ t talk about often that is really important , because I want it to be done because it ’ s the right thing to do , but there is also a compelling economic reason , and we ’ re actually going to start doing some research on it this year . There is a direct correlation between women in senior roles and the financial success of businesses .
10 • CANADIAN MUSICIAN