Electronic Music Inclusion Initiative launches with InChorus to tackle harassment and discrimination

Electronic music organisations Pioneer DJ, Beatport, Sentric Music Group, AFEM, Mixmag, RA, IMS, and Women in CTRL partner with ground-breaking platform, InChorus, to launch the Electronic Music Inclusion Initiative (EMII, pron. Emmy) to take a data-led approach to creating more inclusive environments across the industry. 

The data-led approach, encourages anyone who has experienced harassment, bias or discrimination while working in the electronic music industry to take a moment to log details through the InChorus anonymous reporting tool. 

As the lead partner, Pioneer DJ’s General Manager, Mark Grotefeld commented, “Diversity and inclusion are key priorities for Pioneer DJ. We are proud to support the Electronic Music Inclusion Initiative in order to push for systemic change across the industry. We hope this will continue the progress and empower individuals to share their experiences of bias and harassment and encourage the industry to adopt robust listening tools that enable targeted action and progress”.

As a general observation, there is a lack of data around these challenges, particularly looking beyond gender or when considering an intersectional approach. 

•  DJ Mag Top 100 list in 2019, only 5 of the top 100 were women – in 2020, there were 14
• In the Top 150 clubs, the annual percentage of female DJs is 6% 
• According to a study done by the Annenberg Institute, women make up less than 3% of production and technical roles in the music industry, and women of colour hold less than 0.3% of those jobs. 
• Mixmag Blackout feature https://mixmag.net/feature/exploitation-black-women-vocalists-house-music
• Thump revealed that in 2016 only 17% of headliners at electronic music festivals were female 
• FACTS Survey 2020, nearly 400 festival editions from around the world spanning the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 were surveyed. For festivals spanning the years 2012 to 2019, 17.3% of all acts were female acts, 74% were male, 6.9% were mixed acts, and 1.5% were unidentified.
• There are no women on the Forbes 2019 list of highest paid DJs. In fact, since Forbes started tracking DJs in 2012 not a single female act has appeared on the ranking.
• Women are 11 times more likely than men to feel in a minority because of their gender, with women making up 88% of those selecting ‘gender’ as the reason for their minority status against 8% of men.

This first step, to collect experiences over the next 4 weeks, is designed to provide new insights on the issues within our culture and inform the next steps we can collectively take as an industry to address them. 

Head here: https://electronicmusic.inchorus.org/