In recent years, female music artists have increased in quantity and popularity. With artists like Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, and Megan Thee Stallion topping the charts, hate directed at female artists has become more apparent. The double standards in the music industry have caused us to shift into an era of hating female artists for being successful. They face more criticism than men, whether they’ve become too successful, too mainstream, or write about “overdone” topics. Whenever their success is attributed to something that breaks the normative standards in society, we tend to turn on them and find ways to invalidate them. Many of these things are rooted in the misogynistic nature of the music industry and society at large. Thus, they will be hard to dismantle, but they should still be addressed.
Women Can’t Win
Within the music industry, women are consistently held to a higher standard. They seemingly have to do more to prove that they deserve their success, regardless of their talent. However, when they prove that they’re deserving (through awards or other accolades), they are suddenly “doing too much” and are deemed undeserving all over again. One example is the backlash Billie Eilish received upon winning big at the 2020 Grammy Awards. Although the Grammys have problems of their own, claiming Eilish was undeserving of her awards was an almost immediate dismissal of the work she’d done to prove herself. Women in the industry are constantly stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can never truly be accepted because there will always be something they could’ve done differently. The goalpost keeps moving.
Success Within Limits
Upon reaching a certain level of success, female artists’ talent tends to get undermined. They get blamed and hated for doing consistently well at their craft, which is something most artists strive for. Much of this blame comes from people who get tired of hearing about them and regard their success as an annoyance. They become too successful and mainstream, which ultimately bothers people. Even female artists like Beyonce are claimed to be overrated despite their talent. People simply get tired of women in the industry being successful. The problem comes from the fact that many don’t hold this same energy for men in the industry. Men can get as successful as they want, but their success will rarely be seen as annoying. Instead, they are celebrated for it.
Double Standards
Most notably, there is an apparent double standard regarding what topics female musicians can write music about compared to male musicians. A popular example of this is Taylor Swift and the narrative that “she only writes about her exes.” Even if this statement has some truth, we hardly hear the same thing about male artists who write about their relationships and breakups. Another example is Megan Thee Stallion and the shame she gets about her music being sexually explicit. Male rappers are just as, if not more, explicit in terms of lyrics and sexual themes, yet they get praised for it. This could be a result of the discomfort surrounding women talking about sex in the United States, but it’s also an example of selective outrage. Getting mad at women for something men do with little to no backlash is glaringly hypocritical. Generally, female artists are told to stop making music about the same topics, while men face less criticism for doing the same thing. In the eyes of society, female artists’ music needs to be varied to be considered good.
The real problem comes from holding men and women to different standards based on gender. We are usually harder on women, whether we realize it or not. Of course, it’s okay to dislike female musicians for your own reasons, but it’s important to recognize why you dislike them. If we’re going to be critical of musicians, it’s important to be consistent in our criticism.