... Because it always helps to have a kitty beside you to read through this kind of thing.
GENDER INCLUSION POLICY
1. Who We Serve
The Female DIY Musician is an intersectional online resource providing training in home recording and production for female musicians at a variety of levels. This takes place in both paid for and free events and programmes. We also have a free podcast called Girls Twiddling Knobs, which has a wide variety of listeners, spread across a multitude of genders.
We welcome all women into our learning spaces, including trans women. We also include trans and non-binary musicians who were assigned female at birth (AFAB). This is to reflect that all women and everyone who was assigned female at birth is affected by misogyny in music and marginalised by the patriarchy.
We deeply value diversity, creating space for women and AFAB people to create music in a way that feels respectful and empowering and directly responds to the needs and experiences of these underrepresented identities in music technology today.
2. Intersectionality
As intersectional feminists, our work is conscious of gender inequality and how this interacts and overlaps with other forms of social, economic and political inequality to create different kinds of discrimination (i.e. racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.).
HOME RECORDING ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIPS
This has led to us launching our scholarship programme in 2021, offering six fully funded scholarships to our online course Home Recording Academy. These open twice a year and are for women and AFAB musicians from disabled, chronic illness, marginalised ethnic and trans communities. We plan on expanding these scholarships to other marginalised groups as we grow our provision.
GIRLS TWIDDLING KNOBS DIVERSITY AIMS
We also have strict diversity aims regarding the guests we invite onto our podcast, ensuring the voices we feature offer a variety of perspectives from women in music. We are always working to improve both how we meet these aims as well as the scope of them with each new season.
THE FDIYM LEARNING ECOSYSTEM
Our learning spaces both celebrate and centre the female experience of music and music technology. We are committed to welcoming trans and non-binary musicians and we recognise that that different musicians will be bringing different experiences into our learning spaces. If the following ecosystem of learning feels like a space you would feel comfortable in and that you could contribute to, you would be very welcome:
3. Future Inclusivity Vision
As a team, we are focused on learning, listening and collaborating to continue to improve the inclusivity and impact of what we do. Therefore, we have a 10 year plan we are committed to working towards.
Ideally, in time, the music industry and female musicians will not need a space that is focussed at women and AFAB musicians. We hope, sooner-rather-than-later, that musicians of all genders can feel respected and comfortable in music technology communities, whether they be online, in formal education or in commercial music studios.
However, we are not there yet. Our own work, backed up by academic discourse, demonstrates that female-only spaces are one of the most effective ways women and AFAB musicians can gain vital skills in recording and production today. This results in more musicians from these demographics releasing music and having an artistic career as well as being able to re-enter male-dominated music environments with greater confidence and support.
4. Thoughts?
We are constantly reflecting on these policies and our approach to gender inclusion in a female-centred space. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding our gender inclusivity policy, please email us at info@femalediymusician.com
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This policy was developed in March 2022 in consultation with Gendered Intelligence.