The Other Girl Group: DJs

For all the times I curse social media, I have so many reason to celebrate it. Recently a friend added me to a closed Facebook group for female record collectors and DJs only. I have been working in record stores since the late '80s and there has always felt like a shortage of women who collect records because we are so greatly outnumbered by men. This FB group has connected a number of us from all over the world and in turn not only am I discovering great records but I am learning about all female DJ collectives I didn't know existed. As you can guess, the number of female DJs is much smaller than the number of men so again, it is thrilling to see so many ladies all over the planet banding together not to play instruments but to play records. 

Here is just a tiny number of them I know about:

Meet Fortyfive Degrees, a six lady collective from Germany.

And hooray for The Beat Mermaids from Copenhagen.

Frau DJs from the UK

I have written about Discwoman in NYC before.

There is another private FB group that has Mixcloud site called Sister that celebrates women in underground club music.

Chulita Vinyl Club in Austin

TGAF are from Paris, France

Honey Power in SoCal

In Japan there is the Twee Grrrls Club.

Siren in the UK

Tell me about more of them and I will add to the list!

And while we don't exist anymore, shout out to my ladies who for a few years there did Cherry Bomb with me in Richmond, VA.

Is Music a Masculine Domain?

Elizabeth Newton has written a hell of an interesting piece for The New Inquiry on how women have been excluded in music with a heavy focus on Jazz and recording collecting.

One of my favorite female DJs / collectors is Sheila Burgel and she is quoted in this article. In fact I have so much respect and awe for what she does that I have asked her to spin records along with myself and Sister Golden Haze for my birthday. You are invited to join us. I hope to interview her while she is in town visiting and will post it here in the weeks to come.

Discwoman : Girls to the Tables

A few days ago I decided my turntables were in need of new slipmats. I didn't know what I was looking for other than I wanted them to be colorful and not feature a logo of a band or gear brand name. Our record players are located in our dining room so these slipmats are something we (my boyfriend and I) need to live with daily. What I wasn't expecting in my Google search was a sea of images that mostly screamed horny, stoner dude. Meaning if it wasn't a picture of a pot leaf in some form on the slipmat, there were breasts and more breasts. 

My takeaway from that experience was that the expected customer for these items are not women, they are predominantly men. If you spend much time attending DJ nights you will know that this is a fair assumption. Where the number of women playing in bands seems to be on the rise, the number of female DJs and club promoters is not. We are a very small number and the sexism I have faced while playing in band is nearly two fold as a DJ. The expectation is that I don't know anything about my gear, how a PA works, and most insultingly to me, that I don't know anything about music. There is also a frustratingly high level of sexual harassment and abuse from people in the crowd. Some men find no issue with randomly touching a female DJ's body, getting handsy with our turntables or mixers (IE let me show you how it's done or if you can do it, it must be easy and I will try it right now without your permission), flipping through our records without asking as if they are browsing at a store, or shouting at us comments relating to our bodies and what they would like to do to them. This is our work space and it, as well as our bodies, are being violated by strangers who occasionally look at female DJs like we are strippers soliciting lap dance.

Needless to say, whenever I discover fellow female DJs or women who operate in this male dominated music world at all, I take note. 

NPR recently wrote an article about the the NYC based Discwoman, a trio of women who operate a DJ booking agency focused on showcasing female-identified DJs. Discwoman however aren't just curating events where women are the talent and running the show, they are also actively encouraging women to become involved in their world. It doesn't have to mean making or playing electronic music, they are helping teach others how to book events, run sound, and all the other various aspects that go into making a DJ night happen. It is inspiring to know that they are leading by example. The more of us there are doing these things, the less fetishized and alien women in this scene will be treated. There is comfort, safety, and power in growing our number. We all know learning a particular skill isn't the first hurdle, it is finding the courage to try at all. If we create a womb of nurturing support, there is so much talent to be born from this.  

Here is a video I found that further expands on this subject. Maybe you will find it as illuminating and encouraging as I did. 

Sidenote: For clarity sake, I am not a DJ that creates electronic music in a live setting. I have made a solo record that merged electronic music and indie rock (Ringfinger) but as a DJ, I play other people's records. I pride myself on my large and varied record collection. I do not use a laptop, I cultivate a DJ set using vinyl records from my personal collection.