By Leading female empowerment organisations in the music industry are joining forces to put on the first European Female DJ Summit. The summit will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, later this year. Before then, organisers want female DJs to share their experiences of working in the industry.
Future Female Sounds has received funding from the European Commission – Creative Europe programme to produce the summit. They’ve teamed up with shesaid.so and female:pressure to pull the event together. An open invite will go out to all female and gender minority DJs in the EU.
Survey
First though, organisers are inviting all female and gender minority DJs based in Europe to take part in a survey. The survey is open to full-time, part-time, professional and amateur DJs. Designed to investigate the status of women in the scene, the survey explores current trends. It asks participants about the challenges they face and about their plans post-Covid. Feedback will help shape the European Female DJ Summit agenda. Data from the survey will also be used to compile a digital DJ guide.
Sensitive Topics
As well as the basics – DJ set-up, genres played, frequency of gigs pre-Covid – the survey dives into more sensitive topics. It asks about objectification, age and genre discrimination. It also asks about harassment, and stigma in terms of motherhood. Organisers claim that by filling out the survey participants will “help us build an even stronger community”.
Gender Parity
Founded in 2014, shesaid.so is heavily involved with the International Music Summit, in Ibiza. In 2019, the organisation co-curated the event, working towards gender parity at IMS Ibiza. shesaid.so intended to return as co-host in 2020 before the global pandemic derailed last year’s IMS plans.
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