Avoiding Dissonance: When Women Are Left Out of Co-writing Groups

• In Event: 41059 - Gender, Representation, and Identity in Digital Media

Abstract

This chapter from a larger book project on collaborative creativity in country music songwriting covers the implications of conventions of informal collaborative creativity for women in country music songwriting. Interwoven with analyses of interview data and analyses of news media around the sexist "Tomatogate" media incident of 2015, the chapter will recast network diagrams to show gendered patterns of collaboration, presenting quantitative evidence that confirms qualitative insights about the exclusion of women from country music songwriting. Gender is a lens through which I will make clear that exclusion from collaborative co-writing groups limits access to career stability and artistic expression given conventions of consonant creative work in this art world. I will also reveal the fact that this occupation is so white that I cannot even reveal the non- white race/ethnicity of my interviewees directly because of how easy it would be to figure out their identities. As might be expected based on social network and boundary-making theories, it is simpler to find shared kernels of truth and protect one another’s shared fortunes in groups that are already alike, both in terms of culture and social identity. This has led to the community of songwriters, intentionally or not, reproducing a static image of who a songwriter is and whose songs will rise up the charts.

Author

• Rachel Skaggs, The Ohio State University