Her speech celebrated the rich history of women working for change within the Australian music industry. In 1988 Ms Gordon established Australian Women’s Contemporary Music (AWCM) as a not-for-profit association to improve the status of women working in the industry. AWCM produced Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait contemporary music festival, With Open Eyes; the first all-girl rock festival, Fast Forward; the first training program for female DJs, Scratch and the first fanzine for female musicians, Snatch.
Socially aware and politically active from her early years Ms Gordon made her mark as a songwriter and guitarist with the Brisbane-based feminist women’s band SPIT, at a time when the Go-Betweens, Zero, the Saints and the Riptides were coming into prominence. In the Bjelke-Petersen “police state” era creativity was “a foundation for social conscience”. Lindy Morrison of the Go-Betweens was one notable peer with similarly passionate and enduring feminist convictions.
With reference to various developments throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Ms Gordon lamented the lack of female representation on boards such as Ausmusic and ARIA, and in the context of the rock industry more broadly. “In the early ’90s there was no recognised female producer in Australia, only a handful of female engineers, one woman running her own record label, 95 per cent of all employed DJs were men, not one Aboriginal woman was employed by any music industry company that we knew of, and just one Indigenous woman was signed to a major label. There has never been a female managing director or CEO of a major record label in Australia to this day.”
It is this lack of gender and cultural equity with respect to the business and technical areas of the industry (senior positions most pertinently) that is of main concern. “It is the decision makers who determine the culture and future of the industry,” Ms Gordon emphasised. “It is the decision makers who shape the face of the industry and are responsible for how it is projected and perceived by the mainstream, and far too few, scandalously few, are women.”
In 2016 this is what our music boards look like: ARIA Board – five men, no women; AIR Board – nine men, no women; APRA Board – 12 men, two women; AMCOS Board – 12 men, one woman.
“When I was elected to the ARIA Board in 2002,” Ms Gordon explained, “I was the first elected woman on that board [in 50 years] to represent the independents. There has not been another woman elected to the board since.”
Although acknowledging a significant attitudinal shift towards equality, Ms Gordon maintains a rage for reforms. “For 30 years people have told us to be understanding, to be patient and to be quiet. The issue of gender continues to divide us. Women and men who speak out are afraid of being labelled troublemakers. But today I think I am among troublemakers, people I like to call visionaries, our agitators and activists … We are the ones who want change, who believe that when you mix it up, culturally and gender-wise, it will be more vibrant, more interesting, and yes, a more creative and profitable industry …”
The keynote address included quotations from Amy Morgan of Beggars Music (Cat Power, Warpaint and US rapper Kitty) who is particularly critical of mainstream pop: “Young A&R guys are taken more seriously than women because there’s this weird tradition where knowledge of music has always been considered male.”
Ms Morgan adds: “It’s quite hard to have children … because of the nature of the job, the industry is obsessed by younger women. But the music industry is also only a mirror to bigger social problems. And all Miley Cyrus is doing, even if it was her decision, is being reflective of a wider sense where to be successful as a young woman she has to take all her clothes off and lick a hammer.”
Acknowledging the often underestimated contribution of Indigenous and culturally diverse music practitioners, Ms Gordon cited as inspirational the Women’s Empowerment Principles articulated by the United Nations. “We clearly have the will and the intelligence to come to grips with gender and cultural equity and this needs to be addressed across the board, in all sectors of the industry, at a policy level,” she said.
In 2009 Vicki Gordon founded Cicada International as a not-for-profit association to create opportunities for Indigenous, marginalised and disadvantaged young people to sustain wellbeing through self-expression, self-determination and creativity. More pointedly, Cicada empowers Indigenous, marginalised and disadvantaged young women and girls to address social and cultural barriers to their full participation. It also aims to assist the development of new partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists and managers, industry service providers and development organisations.
Cicada is proud to announce an inaugural Women in Music Awards slated for 2017. High-profile female artists from various cultural backgrounds have pledged in principle support for an event that promises to be another milestone towards full gender equity in the industry and beyond.
