Institute of Contemporary Arts

Don't look now, there's a woman in the store

Date: 8 January 2007

Emma discusses the male domination of the record industry

Eight hundred miles driving and three days later, and we have driven to and back from Los Angeles, where our record store pilgrimage continued.

We filmed 7 interviews in two days: four with artists and record labels - Plug Reasearch, and one of their signings, Daedelus ; Stone's Throw and Dub Lab , and then four different record stores: Sea Level (a new leftfield indie rock store), Rockaway, which has been going for nearly 30 years and specialises in collectibles and memorabilia, particularly The Beatles; Atomic, which offers a host of vinyl, expecially jazz, and Freak Beat which sells new and used CDs and vinyl, and is run by two right old characters called Bob and Tom.

Today's chief deduction and observation: Where are all the women? The longer we work on our film, the more apparent it becomes that the record store business - and the music industry at large, in fact - is still a very male domain, and a large percentage of the people we have come across, from the store owners and their staff, to DJs, musicians, and the labels and distribution networks that sit around them, are of the male variety. No great surprise there I guess, as it's no secret that the music business has always been, and continues to be, dominated by men, but it's really reinforced the fact for me while we've been away. Not that we haven't interviewed any women - we've hooked up with a good few female music professionals on our travels, and it's certainly not that women aren't interested in music or vinyl, but you can't get past the fact that the boys out number the girls. 'It's not a place to pick up women!' says store co-owner Rick, at Atomic Records, Los Angeles.

Of the few women we have talked to - and fear not, it's one of my missions to balance out the numbers a bit more in our remaining weeks working on the project - we've encountered a host of equally obssessive and knowledgable music afficionados, from store owners and workers, to a label owner and producer, and another who works on reissues for music publisher Abkco.

But they are definitely thin on the ground, and still seem to have to fight that little bit harder to claim their space in the musical realm. At Good Records in Manhattan, there's even a 'ladies' bench', complete with coffee table books for the vinyl widows to peruse, while their male counterparts dig the crates. Thoughtful on the one hand this might be, but on the other, it does also presuppose that women couldn't possibly be interested in shopping for records themselves, and would rather flick through magazines, than scour the bins for a sound library oddity.

Halcyon Records in DUMBO, Brooklyn, have acknowledged this somewhat, and host a monthly in store event aimed at encouraging and promoting women DJs. One of their female staff, Connie, who also DJs in and around New York, brings down a crew of girl DJs to the store and they hit the decks, with all women who shop in the store receiving a 10% discount on vinyl perchases. However, it seems unfortunate to me that this even has to be the case - that women are seen somehow as a bit of a novelty on the scene - and although Halycon's strategy is an important one, and should not be discouraged, it also highlights that fact that the business of music, including record stores, is not necessarily an even playing field, and women who DJ, or collect vinyl, are viewed as the exception, rather than the norm.