Engineering a place for women

Women’s participation in music technology education has been described as a ‘leaky pipeline’, analogous to the drop-off rates from women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) subjects. From one educational level to the next, music technology courses see the number of participating women decline. As a result, university level music technology degrees witness a gender imbalance of up to 90% men to 10% women. Unsurprisingly, figures estimate that 95% of music producers are men. This paper explores the complex intersections of gender, technology, music and education. First, its research question asks what the classroom experiences of women in music production and sound engineering courses are in relation to gender. Second, this research understands music education as an important precursor to artistic careers, and this approach seeks to primarily provide an understanding of women’s experiences of music technology courses, and to secondarily understand how those experiences compare with post-educational ones. Therefore, this paper also addresses the relationship between their experiences in these courses and experiences within the field afterwards. These questions were addressed by conducting semi-structured interviews in Manchester, UK and Berlin, Germany, with women who studying for, or had completed courses in music production and sound engineering. Interviews focused on (i) classroom experiences, experiences of classmates (ii) experiences with teachers and, (iii) how experiences within the educational setting compared to those in the field. This research found that respondents experience the music technology classroom as a male space, and that teachers, while not immune from inserting their own gender biases into their evaluations and interactions with students, do make efforts to be more inclusive of female students. Comparisons between educational experiences and workplace experience were mixed, but provided further support for suggestions of the maleness of the music technology sphere.