Still Not ‘The Year Of The Woman:’ Why We Must Keep Fighting For Gender Equality In The Live Music Biz & Beyond

Happy Women’s History Month and welcome to Pollstar’s sixth annual Women of Live issue. Pollstar staff is excited to celebrate the dozens (68 honorees this year!) of brilliant, innovative and powerful women on 2025’s list who are having a huge impact across the live industry and far beyond.

That said, it’s a strange time to be busting out the party hats – especially for those of us living in the U.S. where a new presidential administration is explicitly anti-diversity, equity and inclusion.

As reported in Pollstar’s recent Black History Month issue, many of the biggest players in corporate America have shifted from the moral, ethical and business sense of promoting DEI to falling in line with the White House. This is happening amidst the shutting of governmental DEI programs and the threat of government-funded organizations and educational institutions that support DEI losing funding.

This socially regressive policy is taking over the U.S. at a time when this country was already rolling back gender equality. Not only is the U.S. again not ready for its first female president, we’re only a little over two years from when the United State Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and took away women’s legal right to make their own reproductive health decisions.

United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Türk speaking at the 58th session of the Human Rights Council on March 3 said the world was going through “a period of turbulence and unpredictability, reflected in growing conflict and divided societies.” After noting that the U.N. had enjoyed bipartisan support from the United States on human rights over many decades, Türk added, “I am now deeply worried by the fundamental shift in direction that is taking place domestically and internationally. In a paradoxical mirror image, policies intended to protect people from discrimination are now labelled as discriminatory. Progress is being rolled back on gender equality.”

A day after the session, the Pew Research Center released its analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers, finding that “in 2024, women earned an average of 85% of what men earned.” The gender pay gap has slightly improved over the past two decades, with women earning 81% as much as men in 2003. The Pew Research Center notes that “as has long been the case, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older” – at just a 5% gap.

Zeroing in on the music business, the industry has far to go when it comes to achieving gender equality – both on the artist side (from which acts top the charts to who is generating the greatest revenue on tour) as well as the balance of power in the executive ranks.

“It’s hard to make a sweeping statement across all of the indicators, but by and large things aren’t great,” Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the founder of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, tells Pollstar. “I think what’s really problematic is all this chatter in the press and at the big companies that it’s the year of the woman – [referring to] Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, all the other talent that are being recognized. And what that illuminates is that examples that are highly visible and top of mind come to the forefront of our thinking very, very easily. And so then we overgeneralize to how things are doing and how things are doing could not be further from this being the year of the woman. So there’s a disconnect between what you hear at these companies or what you read in the press and you look at the data.”

Despite Swift breaking records on tour and a number of women making massive impacts both commercially and critically including Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli xcx and Doechii, examining Pollstar’s own data shows that it’s still not The Year of the Woman.

Only 14 women are represented in the top 100 of Pollstar’s 2024 Top Touring Artists Worldwide, with three in the top 10: Taylor Swift, P!NK and Madonna. The number of women in the top 100 rises to 18 if you include bands that have female members (Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, RBD and Trans Siberian Orchestra) and two entries from Stevie Nicks (who deserves more!). She ranks as both a single headlining artist (No. 73) and a co-headliner with Billy Joel (No. 92).

The USC Annenberg Inclusion released an update to the “Inclusion in the Music Business” study on March 12, just before press time. The study found “in comparison to 2021, there was no increase in the percentage of senior executives who were women, people of color, or women of color in these roles–in fact, the percentage of underrepresented top executives decreased.” Though the 2021 study included executives from live music in its data, the 2025 edition excluded the live sector, focusing on five music business categories: 1) music groups, 2) labels/label groups, 3) publishing, 4) streaming, and 5) music distribution.

The 2021 study examined the top executives at 70 major and independent companies and found that “at the pinnacle of power within these entities (e.g., CEO/Chair/President), 86.1% of top executives were men (13.9% women) and 86.1% were White (13.9% underrepresented). When it comes to the women and the executive ranks of CEOs, EVPs, SVPs, GMs andVP/Heads, not one sector came close to 50%. Live music and concert promotion had the highest percentage at 39.1%.

In January the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released “Inclusion in the Recording Studio? Gender & Race/Ethnicity of Artists, Songwriters & Producers across 1,300 Popular Songs from 2012 to 2024.” The report, which is sponsored by Spotify, found that women comprised 37.7% of artists across the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart last year, while representing 18.9% of songwriters in 2024 and just 5.9% of producers.

“If we look at the songwriter data you can’t tell me that in the world 81% of all artistry is held by men when it comes to writing, right? I think Jane Austen might be really pissed off if that’s the case. But this just shows how incredibly biased and discriminatory folks are and not just in signing [artists], but then in who they bring to artists to listen to and to potentially write with in the studio or writing camps or whatever,” Smith says.

She added, “The reason why there’s no women producers is because of the conceptualization that people have about who can be a leader and it is not a woman. … Anytime you say it has to be organic, that’s a person that doesn’t get it. They do not understand decision-making. They don’t understand hiring.”

Reflecting on the current U.S. administration’s anti-DEI policies, Smith said, “It’s really unfortunate now because if you didn’t have policies and procedures in place, now companies are being challenged, if not condemned or threatened, for any sort of DEI focus. … In terms of making decisions on who to sign and who gets supported, now it’s going to be very difficult because there are so many headwinds coming out of Washington toward [DEI] initiatives. And what are the initiatives? The initiatives are just designed to counter problematic ways of selecting folks who are extraordinarily talented. The goal is to try to ensure that people’s personal biases are … held in check so that [people] can be evaluated for their talent and that people’s identities aren’t what is used to make a decision.”

Thankfully, there are tons of women (and allies) in the music business who are committed to continuing to fight to help increase representation and create working environments where all people feel welcome, which will only make our companies more creative and successful.

“We absolutely plan to continue looking for ways to expand opportunities for all people from underrepresented groups,” said The Azoff Company Co-President and 2025 Women Of Live Hall of Fame inductee Elizabeth “Beth” Collins.

“We need to acknowledge that we are all living with an unequal playing field and it is incumbent on all of us to do everything we can to change that. Diverse voices make our businesses better. They bring new ideas and fresh perspectives. There is huge value in that.”