In the name of International Women’s Day, the fourth edition of an annual study has been released. The study offers findings of the challenges women and non-binary musicians face. Melissa Etheridge, participating in the study, shared her own challenges and explained how queerness protected her from the domination of white male executives in the rock scene. The musician’s forward reads:
“It’s no secret that the music industry has historically been a boys’ club. There have been decades of music defined by incredible women dominating the charts, but behind the scenes women have often been pushed aside and prevented from reaching the same career heights while typically white, male executives have profited from our labor.”
She further explained how being a queer musician protected her from harassment:
“What was the hardest for me was also a blessing. I was lucky enough to find steady work in L.A.’s lesbian bars, so when I entered the music industry, it was already known that I was gay. It changed the way people responded to me. I didn’t experience the same sexual harassment as straight women did in the industry. Men stood back and didn’t know how to deal with me, so in a way, my queerness protected me.”
Etheridge Preferred To Write Genderless Music
In January 1993, Etheridge publicly came out as a lesbian at the Triangle Ball, an LGBTQ+ event held to celebrate the inauguration of then-President Bill Clinton. This significant revelation had an immediate and substantial impact, catapulting her record sales from one million to six million overnight.
Etheridge has been active in the music industry since 1985 and has been writing ‘genderless’ music. The lyrics for ‘Meet Me In The Back,’ as it appears, caught the eyes of some people for certain reasons. The musician said in an earlier interview:
“I was very aware of my lyrics, but the funny thing was even when I was playing gay bars, I didn’t write overtly. I never went, ‘And I love her.’ I never wrote like that because I did want my music to be universal. If a woman is thinking about a guy, I want her to be able to sing, ‘Oh, somebody bring me some water.’ I kept it very gender nonspecific for that reason.”
Etheridge also stated that she kept the lyrics gender-neutral so that everybody could relate to her songs, whether male, female, non-binary, straight, gay, or bi.
You can hear ‘Meet Me In The Back’ below.
