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Gender Inequality In Country Music

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Walking the Line of Gender Inequality Country music is a staple of American culture, however it does not properly represent over half of its audience. Female musicians in the country music genre are heavily outweighed by their male counterparts in terms of radio airplay and sales. Why do the successful country music artists not reflect the demographic of the audience? Has representation of each gender in country music always been as skewed as it is today? Female artists in country music should receive the same opportunities or treatment from the industry that male artists do.
Country music originated in the 1920s in Tennessee. The genre was influenced by folk music from the Appalachian Mountains and revolved around themes of love, faith, …show more content…

Commercially, some women have experienced extreme success while under the country music umbrella. Shania Twain, one of the most popular artists in the 1990s, “Not only is [...] country music’s most successful female artist, she also recorded the genre’s most successful album of all time, Come On Over in 1997” (McCarthy, par. 3). Taylor Swift’s 2013 arena tour to support her last country album was the most lucrative tour in North America that year, bringing in more than $113 million in ticket revenue (Sisario, par. 16). Critically, women have fared extremely well in recent years. A movement to make music acknowledging the genre’s roots has been lead by a group of female country musicians- to the admiration of critics and fans alike, if they get the chance to hear the music. Since 2014, seven of fifteen nominees for the Grammy Award for country album of the year have been women, with two of the three winners being female (Leight, par. 28-30). If women are given the opportunity to be heard on the radio and develop a fanbase, the chances to achieve a high level of prosperity are just as high as their male counterparts’. The level of critical success experienced by some new female artists shows that women and the themes they portray in their songs appeal to many people, even if the music is not being heard by the

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