Female DJs at festivals

Can Teaching Young Women to DJ and Produce Solve Gender Inequality in Electronic Music? (thump)

Women have been DJing and producing music since the tools to do so have been available, and many of electronic music's earliest pioneers were either female or gender nonconforming. Yet in 2016, women are still badly underrepresented everywhere from festival lineups to annual DJ rankings and club rosters.

This article features a DJ workshop at the Lower Eastside Girls Club in New York City and the organization Women’s Audio Mission (WAM), a San Francisco-based nonprofit program offering resources for women who want to forge careers in studio arts and recording.

There are similar programs all over the world and I hope that more and more girls get access to such a program. That we don’t see more female DJs at festivals is certainly not related to a lack of interest in electronic music. I believe it’s still the technology part of DJing. Not a lack of interest. It's more like women have a different approach to technology. These workshop are definitely a good opportunity to close the gender gap. But reading the comments of this feature on thump makes me quite sad … there are just a couple of comments but I really hope there are not more people sharing these views. If, then it is still a long way to see more women at the decks.

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