A new study on gender and racial figures in pop music proves the old James Brown refrain is still true: It’s a man’s man’s man’s world.
The study, in part, looked at the gender breakdown of Grammy Award nominees, and found a wide imbalance. A total of 90.7% of nominees between 2013 and 2018 were male, meaning just 9.3% were women.
Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti and Kate Pieper, of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, tracked the gender and racial breakdown of performers, writers and producers across the top echelons of the pop charts and the Grammy Awards.
The full results of the work, titled “Inclusion in the Recording Studio? Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Artists, Songwriters & Producers Across 600 Popular Songs from 2012‐2017,” was released today, a few days before the 60th Grammy Awards.