Jennifer Gerson<\/a><\/p>\n Originally published by The 19th<\/a><\/p>\n Six weeks before the nominations for the 2022 Grammy awards were even announced, Kacey Musgraves found out that her latest album, \u201cStar-Crossed,\u201d would not be eligible for a Best Country Album nomination.<\/p>\n All three of Musgraves\u2019 previous albums \u2014 \u201cSame Trailer, Different Park,\u201d \u201cPageant Material,\u201d and \u201cGolden Hour\u201d \u2014 were nominated in this category, with the first and third winning it. \u201cStar-Crossed,\u201d however, is being classified as a pop album. The decision was made within the Recording Academy by an anonymous committee consisting of people who work in the country music industry. (The Grammys are, however, allowing the track \u201cCamera Roll\u201d to be considered for Best Country Song.)<\/p>\n Musgraves quickly took to social media, posting photos of herself performing alongside some of the most notable icons of country music, asking those stars rhetorically if they agreed that you can take the \u201cgirl out of country but can\u2019t take the country out of the girl.\u201d Her record label \u2014 Universal Music Group Nashville, a country music label \u2014 sent a letter to the Recording Academy, asking them to please reconsider their categorization of \u201cStar-Crossed.\u201d<\/p>\n While the fate of Musgraves\u2019s appeal remains to be seen, one thing is already a well-established fact: Country music has a gatekeeping problem, and it\u2019s often tied to gender. A 2019 study<\/a> from University of Southern California\u2019s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that women artists represented only 16 percent of the top 500 country music songs from 2014 to 2018. Women artists also held a smaller percentage of the top charts in country music compared with the Billboard Hot 100 for four out of those five years examined.<\/p>\n In other words, as the researchers concluded, women \u201care missing in country music.\u201d And the problem only grows more extreme as women artists age \u2014 something Musgraves herself, only 33, is now facing.<\/p>\n It is well-documented<\/a> that country radio program directors are advised against playing too many women artists in a given one-hour programming block; playing two women back to back is downright verboten. Musicologist Jada Watson, who specifically studies the way gender impacts radio play, longevity and industry standing in country music, published research<\/a> in early 2021 pointing to the way in which this cycle not only keeps women artists out of country music listeners\u2019 ears in the present but creates a self-perpetuating cycle in which annual Billboard lists become dominated by men artists as a result of their greater airplay, effectively erasing the impact, influence and sound of women artists from country music history writ large.<\/p>\n Even those women who have become icons in country music did so by presenting a very specific form of performed femininity, Lorie Liebig, the host of the podcast \u201cMore Than a Cowgirl\u201d told The 19th \u2014 and still faced nonstop harassment and discrimination as a result of their gender. \u201cThe first women to really make their mark in terms of gaining widespread fame faced harassment from people within the industry and even other male artists, terrible record deals and low pay for performances, you name it,\u201d Leibig said. \u201cLoretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, they all went through their own battles.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, she said, not that much has changed. \u201cThose challenges still exist,\u201d Leibig says of what women artists are up against in country music, \u201cWe are just now getting to the point where those topics are being more openly talked about. But there\u2019s still a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n There are some structural reasons why country music has historically had a gender problem. Dean Hubbs, a professor of women\u2019s studies, music and American culture at the University of Michigan, told The 19th that country music as an industry is unique within the larger context of pop music because it actually has a professional organization dedicated to researching and promoting it: the Country Music Association (CMA), which has existed since 1958. Historically, both the CMA and country radio \u201chave sometimes steered country music in directions more conservative than artists\u2019 and listeners\u2019 preferences,\u201d Hubbs said.<\/p>\n Need examples? Look no further than some of the notorious songs banned from country radio, ranging from Kitty Wells\u2019 1952 \u201cIt Wasn\u2019t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels\u201d (about how unfaithful men are to blame should a woman be unfaithful), Lynn\u2019s 1975 \u201cThe Pill\u201d (about a woman angered and frustrated about having no control over her back-to-back pregnancies driven by her husband\u2019s desires until she\u2019s able to begin oral contraceptives), and Martina McBride\u2019s 1994 \u201cIndependence Day\u201d (which drew a connection between American independence and a mother killing her husband in a house fire to escape domestic violence).<\/p>\n Most famously, the all-women country music trio the Chicks (then known as the Dixie Chicks) was outright banned from all country radio \u2014 and the industry writ large \u2014 for years after Natalie Maines, the lead singer, publicly stated that she was \u201cashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas\u201d during a 2003 concert in London at the height of then-President George W. Bush\u2019s mounting military intervention in Iraq.<\/p>\n As Hubbs explained, Wells\u2019s, Lynn\u2019s and McBride\u2019s songs were beloved by fans and taken off air simply because they were thought to have \u201cextreme or dangerous messages about women.\u201d The Chicks \u201cweren\u2019t censured for gender content,\u201d Hubbs said, \u201cbut they were the highest-profile female artists in the country when country radio led boycotts and record-burning events against them for their political speech.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words: Certain voices are not allowed to have opinions in country music, and because those voices are predominantly those of women, women are often pushed out of fully participating in the industry \u2014 and getting to self-identify with the genre \u2014 across the board.<\/p>\n Francesca Royster, an English professor at DePaul University who is working on a book on African-Americans in country music, told The 19th that gatekeeping in country not only happens based on gender but also often weaponizes race. Royster pointed to how hard Beyonce had to work to get recognition in traditional country circles for her song \u201cDaddy Lessons\u201d from her 2016 album Lemonade<\/em>, and how when Beyonce played with the Chicks at the CMA Awards that year \u201cfans commented on her dress \u2014 a translucent beaded gown \u2014 as being \u2018whorish,\u2019 and a sign that as a Black pop star, she didn\u2019t belong in country music.\u201d Royster added that Beyonce\u2019s involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement was also often cited when discussions emerged about her not being \u201ccountry enough\u201d \u2014 a phrase often used to discuss \u201cDaddy Lessons.\u201d (The song was not nominated for Best Country Song at the Grammys the year of its release.)<\/p>\n Similarly, Lil Nas X\u2019s \u201cOld Town Road\u201d was removed from Billboard\u2019s country charts and faulted for not having enough country elements in it, Royster said. \u201cIn each of these cases, the defense of style and form is brought up, but it seems not a coincidence that each of these performers are also bold and outspoken artists who are also either women, folks of color, queer or queer friendly, or some combination of these things.\u201d This idea of \u201cbelonging\u201d is a long-standing trope in the maintenance of country music historically, and Musgraves\u2019s exclusion is no exception.<\/p>\n It\u2019s only in the most recent present, Liebig said, that gender equality in country music has become a topic big enough to draw wider calls for change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have just now started to open the door for discussions of equality for all,\u201d she said. \u201cFor decades, Black women have been shut out of country music. Mickey Guyton\u2019s recent mainstream success is often attributed to a breakout year, but she\u2019s been working her ass off for a decade. She was the first Black woman to be nominated in a country solo performance category at the 2021 Grammys. The fact that it has taken this long for that to happen is both mind-blowing and completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n And Liebig says that the fact that Vince Gill\u2019s love song \u201cWhen My Amy Prays,\u201d a sweet but somewhat forgettable track, won the Grammy over Guyton\u2019s \u201cshows that the consideration process for these awards isn\u2019t as straight-forward as you may want to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n Liebig said that though it\u2019s fair to say that Musgraves\u2019 music has evolved over time \u2014 \u201cjust like any other artist\u201d \u2014\u00a0 her songs at their core come from a traditional country perspective: \u201cTo the point, sharp, honest, clever and real. Authentic.\u201d The shut-out, she said, is on-trend with a tendency in the industry \u201cto punish and shut out women in country music who experiment with their sound,\u201d pointing to the treatment of Maren Morris and Taylor Swift as other examples of this phenomenon.<\/p>\n In country, Leibig said, being \u201covertly feminine is only acceptable in small doses and only in the right packages. Identifying as a woman and presenting yourself as too masculine only works if it\u2019s widely marketable. Trans artists are not represented anywhere in mainstream country music. Artists, regardless of genre and regardless of gender, should be able to do what they want artistically without running the risk of becoming an outcast.\u201d<\/p>\n From the very start of her career, Musgraves has been \u201cprecariously positioned as a female artist in country music,\u201d said Hubbs, not only because of her gender, but because she has \u201cmodeled stances \u2013 probably most famously of LGBTQ acceptance \u2014 that can bring her under scrutiny by the gatekeepers of the country music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n The breakout single from Musgraves\u2019 debut album \u201cSame Trailer, Different Park\u201d was the song \u201cFollow Your Arrow,\u201d in which Musgraves sings \u201cKiss lots of boys\/ Or kiss lots of girls if that\u2019s somethin\u2019 you\u2019re into\u201d \u2014 a notably LGBTQ+-affirming stance rarely, if ever, explicitly stated in country music. Hubbs said that Musgraves\u2019 most recent ban\u00a0 \u201cfrom consideration for major consideration in country music\u201d isn\u2019t happening in a vacuum. Rather, it\u2019s part of this long history \u2014 both of the country music industry\u2019s desire to keep Musgraves and her work and message specifically coded as not-country, and of its strategy of doing so with any artist who doesn\u2019t fit a white, cisgender, male and masculine mold, in terms of both sound and aesthetics.<\/p>\n But there are signals that the industry is starting to change, looking to meaningful ways to address country\u2019s gender problem. In 2020, Country Music Television (CMT) launched CMT Equal Play<\/a>, pledging 50\/50 parity for women artists across all platforms, including all CMT and CMT Music channels, both on TV and radio; the organization also doubled airplay for women artists on CMT Radio Live specifically, and implemented the CMT Next Women of Country: Artist of the Month on-air feature on the nationally syndicated \u201cCMT After MidNite\u201d program, which directly impacts charting.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/streamapse.com\/Magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/TOP_BANNER_STREAMAPSE.jpg\")
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