Women in Electronic Music: Building Better Systems Behind the Scenes

This is Part Two of Downtown’s editorial series in collaboration with the Association for Electronic Music (AFEM), exploring the evolving role of women in electronic music. In Part One, we looked at how more women artists, producers, and DJs are moving from supporting to leading roles. In this piece, we’ll look at tangible acts of systemic support that can help women in the industry make professional gains.

Every artist, label, distributor, promoter, and management team is supported by an ecosystem that shapes who gets opportunities and who doesn’t. It’s the culture of the workplace, the expectations around leadership, and the systems that determine who gets hired, backed, and promoted. Support for women in electronic music is most meaningful when it’s built into the structures that shape opportunity over time.

Building thoughtful support systems takes time, care, and consistency. But there are also plenty of actionable steps teams can take right now to start moving in the right direction.

Build in flexibility

Women are often navigating more than one full-time role at once. They may be building careers while also acting as primary caregivers, not just for children, but for parents, relatives, or others who depend on them. They must be allowed the flexibility to fulfill all those roles at the same time. Work structures that don’t reflect that reality aren’t supportive. Return-to-office policies and super-rigid schedules can push talented people out. The better approach is to set a high standard, then trust people to meet it in ways that reflect the realities of their lives. 

Back women before every box is checked

Support also shows up in who gets trusted with bigger opportunities. In many workplaces, women are expected to prove they can do a job before being considered for it, while men are more often encouraged to stretch into roles they haven’t fully done before. That gap compounds over time. 

The women being overlooked aren’t underqualified… they’re often exactly the right choice. But imposter syndrome is real, and it can make even highly capable people hesitant to raise their hand for something they haven’t done before. Real support means seeing that potential clearly and naming it out loud: encouraging women to go for the stretch roles, deliberately backing women for bigger projects and leadership opportunities before they’ve checked every box.

Create more runway in hiring

Hiring is another place that’s easy to improve. Qualified women exist in the talent pool. Decades of compounding underrepresentation mean they aren’t always the first to surface. If you give yourself a month to fill a role, your applicant pool will statistically skew male, not because women aren’t available, but because the networks that move fastest are often the ones that have always moved fastest. Building more representative teams takes intention, but it also takes time, enough time to cast a wider net and let a broader range of candidates actually find their way in.

Listen to what employees actually need

Many of the barriers women face at work are not always visible to the people making decisions. That’s why regular employee feedback is super important. Surveys and open channels for input can help teams understand what support is needed. And it can reveal blind spots around parental leave, caregiving responsibilities, performance reviews, communication styles, and workplace culture. More importantly, the follow-through matters as much as the asking!

The common thread between the artist side and the industry side is that meaningful change comes from lots of small, intentional choices over time. When women are trusted, sponsored, and supported in ways that reflect real life, they stay longer, grow faster, and help build stronger organizations in return. That kind of environment leads to healthier, more resilient businesses with lower turnover, stronger leadership pipelines, and better cultures. Companies that do this well don’t just retain women, they outperform. As stated in the Women in the Workplace report – conducted by McKinsey & Company and Lean In, and reinforced by research from Gallup – shows that companies with more women in leadership benefit from greater innovation, healthier cultures and stronger performance. And in addition to offering valuable skills and perspectives, women leaders inspire the next generation of women to make their mark.

This is not charity, this is strategy.