On Gender in Songwriting

Women are everywhere and nowhere in music. They make up a mere 21.8% percent of artists, 2.8% of producers, and only 12.7% of songwriters. Let me say that again, 21.8%, 2.8%, and 12.7%. For a group of people who make up over half the world, we are low on an important perspective in the music we listen to. Today we are going to be focusing on female songwriters and the songs written about them (and women in general). 

A forgotten perspective in a winless and one-sided fight; women in the music industry are essentially thrown into a gun fight with a banana. What wouldn't turn a cheek if written by a man, points fingers and questions and says "she's rebelling" and then comes criticism taking shape often in the form of the classic double standard. 

On a 2014 radio show appearance Taylor Swift said of her critics, “You’re going to have people who are going to say ‘Oh, you know like, she just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends’ and I think frankly that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed Sheeran. No one says it about Bruno Mars. They’re all writing songs about their exes, their current girlfriends, their love-life, and no one raises a red flag there.” 

Two hit songs about nasty breakups, two drastically different responses. The difference in adjectives used to describe men and women in the industry and as songwriters are far and wide; a man is strategic and clever and a woman is calculated and vengeful; a man is raw and honest and a woman is "confessional". This word confessional is a strange one, a word that sounds so complementary of a writing and its writer but is in reality riddled with some arguably mysoginistic undertones. Songwriter and musician Joni Mitchell saw the word "confessional" as an especially terrible complement. “When I think of confession, [i think of] somebody trying to beat something out of you externally. You’re imprisoned. You’re captured. They’re trying to get you to admit something. To humiliate and degrade yourself and put yourself in a bad position” and to this she said  “and I am not confessing.”

This term, because it is used otherwise in the context of legal or religious matters, is dipped in shame and guilt and it says a lot that it is attached to female songwriters. Singer-Songwriter, Emmy the Great has found herself deemed as something even further, “almost unbearably confessional, as if she’s reciting pages from her own diary.” Even this visual and idea of songwriting out of a diary is very rooted in early gender roles; a little girl writing in her fluffy pink diary lying on her stomach in bed with her feet up in the air. Rather than it being a genuine commentary on Emmy's vulnerability as a writer and artist, it discredits her and writes her off as someone to not be taken seriously. 

Emmy stated, “A male singer-songwriter might play on the same themes as a female singer-songwriter and it may end up being assumed that the girl is singing from her diary, and the boy is making statements on the big themes of life.” You don't see this label attached to many male artists, one example is Frank Ocean, but this label was given to him after he made a blog post saying a lot of the songs off his album Chanel Orange were about his first love who was a man.

Now that we have established the unfortunate reality of the double standards that are interlaced into the ideas surrounding female songwriting, let's dig in, specifically to how women speak of others in their music and how others speak of them. 

In a study done at Northeastern University 64 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 over thirty years were analyzed for differences in lyrical content in a breakup song based on gender. While male singers tend to use more negative words and curse words to describe their exes, female singers use both positive and negative words equally.

Looking at it even further, there are often four themes that appear in breakup songs: anger, self-improvement, sadness and partying/drinking. While they exist on a broad scale, female writers tend to lean towards self-improvement while men leaned towards partying. While anger and sadness appear equally in songs regardless of gender identity, the main difference was the language and words that were used. 

A great example of the difference in language and tone used by men versus women are two of the most iconic tracks off an even more iconic album: Dreams and Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac. Both songs were written about the breakup between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, Dreams from Stevie's perspective and Go Your Own Way from Lindsey's. Nicks' has said "They're the same song written by two people about the same relationship" and Dreams is famously the gentler and kinder counterpart to the angry Go Your Own Way. (Though, there is nothing wrong with a good angry breakup song).

Another less tame example, with language that is arguably much worse than Lindsey Buckingham telling Stevie Nicks to go her own way because he wants to give her the world but she won't take it from him is Big Sean's I Don't Fuck With You. Big Sean has confirmed that the song is about his ex, Naya Rivera and the song from start to finish brushes off the subject and belittles them with insults. While screaming along to this song is deeply cathartic, its lyrics follow the trend of immense harshness and moving on to bigger and better things which in his case, mean parties, money, and other shinier women and it comes from a songwriting team of exclusively men.

A close female parallel to this song is Ain't Shit by Doja Cat. The song is performed by Doja and the writing of it was spearheaded by her. Like I Don't Fuck With You, Ain't Shit writes off an ex and the worth of men as a whole with specific anecdotal evidence behind it. While still harsh and straightforward, it follows what was found at Northeastern in the sense that it's intensity is notably dialed down from a song like IDFWY.

The double standards, the under representation, the endless sea of a single perspective; it all feels inescapable, like we are locked in as writers, consumers, fans, artists, never to escape the icky clutches of misogyny in our work and what we love. 

As an industry and consumer base, we need welcome female writers, producers, and creators because we are missing so much of a vital perspective (not only of women but also non-binary artists and writers along with those in the LGBTQ+ community). We are BEHIND.

We spend so much time focusing on the he said, she said of it all but not what the music is truly saying. So, keep writing, keep supporting, keep learning and together we can honor and admire songwriters outside of the lines of gender.