Women helping women is always a great sight to see, specially in a time like the one we live in. We are underrepresented in many areas and the music industry is no exception. So when Bebe Rexha decided to create “Women in Harmony”, women all across the industry sighed in relief. Many of them had actually never seen a gathering like this before.
Why Is This Important?
Early in 2019, more specifically five days before the Grammys, an investigative report was released by the USC Annemberg Inclusion Initiative, a think tank that studies diversity and inclusion in entertainment through research and sponsored projects. The researchers involved in this project analysed the 700 top songs on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart between 2012 and 2018 and they found out that only 21,7% of artists are women. The disparity is even greater when we look at songwriters and producers, which only 12,3% and 2,1% are women, respectively.
Image Source: Slaven Vlasic/FilmMagic
According to the research, from 2013 to 2019, 10,4% of Grammy nominees were women. The 2018 edition of the ceremony was actually criticized for having few women nominated and the hashtag #GrammysSoMale was created. That year, Alessia Cara was the only woman that won one of the major awards of the night, “Best New Artist”. Besides that, SZA, the most nominated woman that year, didn’t win any awards, and amongst the people nominated for “Album of the Year”, Lorde was the only woman (Bruno Mars won that one).
When asked about this situation, the then president of The Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, said that “women need to step up”. But that’s easier said than done while women and men still have different opportunities to pursue the same careers. The Inclusion Initiative interviewed 75 songwriters and some of the problems mentioned by them were that their skills were discounted by other people, that they’re stereotyped and sexualized in their work and that the industry is male-dominated. And when they’re working at a recording studio reported that they were objectified, dismissed or were usually the only women present.
About The Event
The first “Women In Harmony” event happened in Los Angeles, on february of last year. The dinner had some of the strongest female writers, producers and artists in the music business as attendees, the list included Charli XCX, Avril Lavigne, Kelsea Ballerini, Daya and many others.
Image Source: beberexha on Instagram
During the event, Bebe Rexha, as well as the others in the room, talked with Billboard, the only media in attendance. The founder of the initiative said that, after seeing the discouraging statistics regarding the amount of female artists on the charts, she realized “why sometimes we get competitive as females, because there’s not enough room for us at the table”. The solution she found? Create their own table.
For her, a private and intimate dinner is the perfect opportunity to create a safe environment, where everybody “can just talk to each other and maybe work with each other. That’s my goal.” And as much as the event was not created to be some type of business encounter, the guests soon started to swap contact informations, talk about songwriting, and planning collaborations.
At that point, Rexha’s plan was to make the dinner an annual thing, maybe expand it some more. But later that same year, in september, she took the event all the way across the pond to London and co-hosted it with Rita Ora. Both Rexha and Ora, who was quick to join in on the initiative, said that, in the beginning, they suffered with the lack of female mentors that understood the industry and could guide them.
Image Source: womeninharmonyofficial on Instagram
According to Rexha, the event is a way to “combine women just starting out with those of us who have had some success so that newer songwriters, singers, producers, engineers can be supported and inspired through the challenges they will face”.
The second annual event that happened in Los Angeles was a pre-Grammy brunch in february of this year. And the list of attendees kept getting bigger, with names like Noah Cyrus, Sabrina Carpenter and Tayla Parx on it.
Image Source: beberexha on Instagram
Some of the 100 women present took the stage to say a few words, through poems, speeches, or simply saying things that have happened to them. As soon as Rexha talks about getting judged by her age and the type of music she makes, others could relate.
The co-writer of songs such as Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” and Panic! At The Disco’s High Hopes, Tayla Parx, described how, as a black woman of a certain age, she’s often labeled as a hip-hop artist. Songwriter Amy Allen recalled a similar situation on a poem (that you can find here).
“…And when he finally sees me
He just asks me my age…”
After the event, Rexha told Variety that she hopes to create workshops that can offer professional advice to women trying to make it in the music industry and, maybe, give away scholarships. But “the first step is bringing us all together”.