INVESTIGATING GENDER DIVERSITY IN ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCTION

On these pages you’ll find everything you need to know about life as a woman or gender expansive artist producing and performing electronic music. The latest statistics, thought leadership, industry articles, documentaries, expert podcasts, and publications are all here, along with the most comprehensive, multi-genre directory of female, trans and non-binary electronic music producers anywhere in the world.

In the Key (ItK) started life as ‘In the Key of She’, Professor Samantha Parsley ‘Leverhulme Trust Fellowship’: an academic research project to explore the career experiences of women on the technical side of electronic music production. In 2022, in recognition of a shifting gender landscape Samantha dropped the pronoun ‘she’ to be more inclusive of non-binary and gender expansive artists. Seriously under-represented, women and non-binary people make up only 2-5% of music producers, and DJ line-ups in the world’s clubs and festivals are still male dominated. If we are serious about helping make tech-heavy creative industries less male dominated, investigating the electronic music industry is a good place to start. 

Through its radio show and socials, In the Key has now grown into a well-respected platform for raising the visibility of gender minority electronic artists, and championing diversity in the electronic music industry more broadly. The research findings have appeared in some of the industry’s leading publications and informed policy at the Association for Electronic Music.