Yea, a lot of people live in Brazil.
I think it's likely Bjork is right in her assessment. Every corner of the music industry (most industries) are sexist..and in more ways than I can count.
Some of it's on the way women are socialized. I've got a big Michelle Chamuel thread, and she's had some interesting things to say on that topic. She's talked about how she had to learn how to communicate with the men in her band (she was in a band with 6 guys at one point, eventually it went down to 5..but...she was essentially working with all men musically.) And she had to learn how to speak up for herself.
But she's also talked about how very few women are involved in other aspects of creating music than just singing and songwriting and to an extent playing instruments. She mentioned that she can count on one hand the amount of female producers she was aware of.
And you just have to analyze why that is. Why don't women work on beats and production and other elements of music? And a lot of that is for the same reason that women aren't involved in STEM fields.
And I think Bjork's right, that women don't get nearly enough credit for what they do musically. Ever see Rolling Stone rank "The greatest singers" or "greatest musicians.." Sure..they love Aretha..and she'll be top 5. But typically, you'll get less than 10 women..out of 100.
Think about what sort of musical genres are considered quality music. Classic/Cock rock...(where Janis Joplin is pretty much the only female representative) tends to be at the top of the critics list...while pop and rap (made up of mostly women and minorities) tend to be at the bottom. To go even further, in more neutral genres (say..R&B) white men tend to get more credibility than women and minorities. (For example, how in the world is Justin Timberlake considered more of an icon than Usher. Both have been around for 20 years. In the R&B genre, Usher has sold more albums. And quite frankly, he's a better singer and dancer. But that's just one example of many..)
Now, there's a lot of crappy pop and rap..but there's a lot of crappy rock too. I'm just saying, I don't think it's a coincidence as to where the credit goes.
Bjork's view of women in the music industry (Bjork vs Kanye)
