This kinda shit drives me insane. The genre ‘females of all description’ is not a music genre. It’s sexist pic.twitter.com/3u0FGCQIbM
— Kate Nash (@katenash) August 29, 2016
When you enter a record store, what genre do you gravitate to first? Some nice chillwave or ambient house? Maybe a bit of hardcore rap? Or perhaps something ridiculously broad and wildly sexist, like Females of All Description? Yesterday musician Kate Nash tweeted a photo from inside an unnamed record store that had decided to group all female artists into one not-very-big box, and though other labels on display are also weirdly broad — Snoop Lion would never have happened if reggae and rap were basically the same — this one is particularly infuriating.
“There would never be a ‘males of all description’ section,” Nash reminded people in a later tweet, “Because the rest of the shop and all other music genres are considered male.” She also pointed out that the labeling is exactly the type of unconscious yet rampant sexism that leads to women being left off of top-earning DJ lists and festival lineups. Not to mention, being sexually assaulted at music venues — imagine if Glastonbury’s response to industry misogyny was not to create a women-only safe space but to lump all women performers onto a separate bill titled Females of All Description.
What’s perhaps most alarming, as one person pointed out on Twitter, is that the store’s entire collection of music by female artists doesn’t even fill an entire box. Part of us is hoping that Females of All Description is actually a fairly prolific band and someone just stuck a Florence record in the crate, but unfortunately, the crazy amount that’s already been written on the repeated sidelining of female artists probably refutes this.
@katenash what really bugs me about this is that they can’t even fill up an entire box with fucking female artists of ALL genres.
— slim pug™ (@verychillgal) August 29, 2016
Related link: 8 female producers behind today’s most innovative sounds
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Image via Twitter