Guest Contribution by April Tucker
Last year, I got one of the weirdest compliments I’ve ever heard: “You’re a real unicorn!” I was working with a mixer who I had recently met (but was an established mixer), and he looked at me in amazement as I asked questions about his workflow. “I’ve heard of Lora Hirschberg and Anna Behlmer, but I’ve never met a female mixer. I’m sorry I’m so taken aback, but I really didn’t think someone like you existed,” he said.
When I heard that the Designing Sound guys were stepping aside this month for women contributors, I thought it was a great chance to say, “Hey look! There’s actually a lot of real unicorns!” Except… it’s been pretty silent. I asked a few women who I thought might be interested, and one woman (who I highly respect) said, “I would rather not address our industry when my invitation is based on my gender. I look forward to writing based on the knowledge and expertise that I can offer as an equal member of the industry.”
She’s absolutely right. We want to be recognized for our work, not our gender. At the same time, a silent protest doesn’t do anything to educate about a bias that we face, but don’t like to talk about openly: We do exist. There’s a lot of us who do the job very well, actually.
For the sake of education/discussion, here’s some examples of the types of discrimination and biases that I’ve encountered in the industry:
On an interview, I was offered a tour of the facility. When I was introduced to the operations manager, he asked, “Are you a producer or a post-production supervisor?” It didn’t cross his mind I could be an audio person, let alone interviewing for a high-level mixing position.
I had a sound supervisor once tell me that I was “threatening and aggressive.” For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m about as threatening as a grandmother handing out cookies. He suggested I be more “subservient” when I’m working with him.
I have a conflict about how to dress. Do I need to dress up when the guys at the studio are wearing hoodies, sneakers and baseball caps? I look more appropriate when I’m dressed up (especially with clients), but I feel over-dressed when I’m with the guys.
One studio had an annual company-sponsored trip to Vegas for the audio guys. After I was hired, they stopped doing it. Someone privately told me they decided it wasn’t appropriate for me to go when their wives/girlfriends weren’t invited. It made me feel pretty alienated from the team, but I also saw resentment from some guys that it was my fault.
I worked at another studio that had a divided male/female climate; women did operations and client services, and men did editing and mixing. As much as I tried to fit in, I felt like a black sheep, never quite finding my place in either group.
In the long run, being a female in the industry has had it’s advantages:
I’ve had more mentors than most of the guys I know. That’s helped immensely with learning new skills, advice, and finding new opportunities.
A lot of male co-workers treat me like a sister (or daughter). Those guys have had my back like no one else over the years.
I rarely encounter ego conflicts between myself and coworkers or clients. Someone who is difficult with a male colleague could be totally cool with me (although occasionally the opposite could be said – some sessions want a “bro” environment without women, and that’s fine.)
The other women who I meet in the industry are pretty awesome. It takes a certain personality type to get into it (and stay in it).
I get great parking spots. I used to resent the special treatment, but studios usually insist on it. Ultimately, it’s about safety, which is important (especially working at night).
What can we all do to be more inclusive/supportive of women (or other minorities) in our industry?
Set a precedent for equality. If you’re in a position of authority, question if the expectations placed on your female employees are the same as your male employees (or have a good reason if they aren’t, like safety or physical demands). Men can make fruit plates and answer phones, and women can excel in the machine room. Dress code standards should be the same for everyone.
Be aware of biases (or discrimination), and speak up if you see it happening. Bias can be subtle. Sometimes people will address my husband (instead of me) assuming that I’m just his guest, and not in audio. I appreciate when he takes the initiative to say, “Have you met April? She’s a post mixer,” or something similar to break the misconception. In social situations, if men and women separate into groups, I might be more interested in what the guys are talking about (especially if they are my co-workers and colleagues!) I appreciate when someone recognizes that I might be stuck in the middle, or gives me an opportunity to naturally jump into the conversation.
Just be yourself on the job – We want to be part of the team. Being “one of the guys” is nothing new – it’s fine if you want to talk about sports or tell the offensive joke you heard. If you’re planning a company or social event and are concerned about the lone woman, ask for her opinion. Find ways to include everyone on the team – the studio that used to have the annual Vegas trip started having events for everyone, which turned out to be great for team-building and camaraderie.
Thanks again to the Designing Sound folks for the great theme and the opportunity!
April has a M.Mus (Sound Recording) from McGill University, and a B.Mus (Music Production & Technology) from the University of Hartford. She is currently a re-recording mixer and “audio adventurist,” taking on side gigs from sound editorial to score mixing, and occasionally still breaking software… for fun. She can be found at www.proaudiogirl.com
Thanks for diving in with your eloquent post, April. I work with many incredible women in film sound post, and I’m certainly tired of people looking for a “sound guy.” Ugh. So I say, keep working hard, keep being excellent, and keep seeking appropriate/equal compensation.
I have worked with amazing & cool men & women who support me and who support women in the industry. And yet, there are still those with overt and those with subtle prejudices against women in sound. Of course, I would love for our work to be gender-blind, that’d be great, but I fear that just still isn’t reality (see the ubiquitous term “sound guy”). So women in sound should support each other, encourage other women who share our interests and passions, and help them find work opportunities, and hopefully we can continue to improve the gender gap.
When I was in film school, simply seeing women in the sound crew pictures in Mix magazine made me feel like this was an attainable career path for me. Let’s have more women in those crew pictures, and maybe someday we will actually change that term “sound guy” to “sound person” (but wait, that’s kinda dull, “sound genius”? “sound geek”? “sound nerd”? I guess “genius” is good…). :-)
Susan – I love “Sound genius”! “Looking for a sound guy” is exactly the type of bias I was talking about.
One challenge that I have (and perhaps another contributor will dig into this deeper) is how to encourage younger women, mentor, etc without giving special treatment for gender. I wouldn’t hire another female only because of her gender just as I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me. If someone wants to ask for advice (male or female), I’m happy to help as much as I can. When it comes to recommending for work (or hiring), it’s very dependent on personality, skill level and strengths, attitude, etc.
Thank you for writing this even if it is based on gender. Apart from not driving a car, I think I have been in all the situations you describe. But I have to say, it is mostly outside the industry, and perhaps higher in management, that people get wide eyed about my choice of profession. At least the narrow mindedness usually ends when people are done assuming I’m administration or tea lady. My only advice is “dress the way you want”. And let them adjust to you for a change. I spent years in oversized army pants because someone accused me of wrongfully getting a job because of gender. I was young and fresh out of school when it happened. Eventually of course, I realized that as long as a do a good job, that type of comments are completely irrelevant. You should consider a unicorn t-shirt though! From fellow unicorn Else in Oslo, Norway; keep being awesome.
Great article, April!
I’ve had my own share of “weird compliments”, including “women don’t write like this”, and “oh, this is really nice… did you compose it all by yourself?” Also in industry social gatherings a few people always assuming that I’m someone’s wife :)
This kind of stuff doesn’t really get to me though – I just laugh about it. I’ve been working in male-dominated industries for the last 10 years, and perhaps I’ve just been lucky so far, but I haven’t experienced the really bad kind of sexism / chauvinism in the workplace. But then again, I would probably kicked someones ass, if that happened, haha :)
In all seriousness though, I believe that things will change. It will take time, but it will happen eventually. And not through complaints, but through positive action. By showing that we do exist and setting example for the next generation, just like Designing Sound is doing this month, and like you did with you article. (I’m working on mine this week)
P.S.: My business card actually *does* say “unicorn”, albeit for other reasons :)
Those are some interesting compliments! :) I think over time we just come to expect it, right? It’s why we can see it as a weird compliment and not something meant to offend. It’s just part of the territory (as it is now).
I’ve noticed it less as I’m getting older. I think part of it is just “priming” that happens before meeting people on the job (which helps set a level of trust/ability beforehand). For example, if I’m working with a new client (at a studio), someone in management has probably said to that client, “you’re going to be working with April. She’s done such and such and our other clients really like her.” If it’s a gig I’m doing on my own and someone has recommended me for it, that recommendation is a type of priming, too. It’s not a surprise cause they know what to expect: a person with experience who does their job well.
Looking forward to your article!
Have you heard of soundgirls.org? they are working on helping us all break down some walls and stereotypes and are just in general offering great exposure to female sound nerds.
so is Women’s Audio Mission
I personally think that the main problem is just a quantity.
Of course there might be some prejudices but I don’t believe that it might happen in good professional companies or studios.
I think that the game industry might really help here. I mean REALLY.
Just look. In cinema production in reality the only way you can have a job is whether by accident or knowing somebody from the industry. Seriously, did anyone ever see an open vacancy for a big film?
I mean like “a sound designer needed for AAA movie, fulltime”. It’s impossible and I think that it’s extremely closed community also.
But in game industry there are always a lot of open opportunities. Always. From intern to senior positions.
You don’t even have to know anybody from industry. All you need is brain and some portfolio. That’s it. Go and take a job.
Alex, prejudices and bias can happen anywhere. The experiences I shared aren’t unprofessional “mom and pop” facilities. Some of my stories are from well-respected Hollywood studios and corporations. It’s better at those places – there’s a general assumption that you know what you’re doing (or else you wouldn’t have the job). But, there can still be that “unicorn” affect (“wow, I’ve never met anyone like you before!”) and finding balance in where to fit in.
I disagree that discrimination is just a matter of competition. If shoe repair technicians have typically been men for hundreds of years, one would walk into a shoe repair shop and probably expect to see a man, right? (What do we typically call people who repair things? A “repairman”). While I haven’t worked in the video game industry, my sense is that the issue exists just as prevalently in video games (or any tech) as post, given that it is historically a male-run industry.
Lastly, my article is not meant to be any reflection on my ability (or anyone else’s ability) to find work. In my ten years in the field, I’ve never been turned down for a job because I was a woman (and it’s actually illegal in the US to discriminate because of that.) The purpose of the article is to bring awareness to the types of discrimination and biases that exist. I share those fully knowing that those are my challenges, and everyone in the industry has their own challenges.
Alex, it’s all connected. The small number of women in the industry actually creates the bias, which in turn keeps the representation low.
This is the (completely subconscious) logic: “There are very few women in [insert career]. They must not be interested in it or good at it.” Then when the hiring happens, the hirer has this unconscious bias.
On top of that, people tend hire people who remind them of themselves (http://www.businessinsider.com/managers-hire-people-who-remind-them-of-themselves-2014-5), which is why the industry stays homogenous.
And before someone says why don’t the few women in the industry hire other women, here is another study that shows that it comes out as “selfish” to their coworkers (http://www.fastcompany.com/3033402/strong-female-lead/damned-if-we-do-how-women-and-minorities-get-penalized-for-promoting-dive).
To be fair, it’s not just women. Game audio is by and large white male. Would love to see more diversity across the board.
So much of this rang true from my time working in music. As an intern, I once got a phone call from the studio manager saying the assistant had bailed and they needed my help on a session – the big chance I’d been waiting for! I arrived to find that the singer had brought her 9 month old son, and they wanted me to babysit. A male intern had been called in to assist.
At the time, it just made me more eager to prove myself, but I’m really ashamed now that I put up with it. It’s not helpful to anyone to accept unequal treatment at any level of your career. I often mistook sexist behaviour for some sort of initiation ritual, a rite of passage, but in hindsight the boys never had to fight for respect in the same way.
My experiences since switching to post have been much more positive – both male and female colleagues and clients have been incredibly supportive and respectful. I believe, as others have said, it’s down to numbers; there is still a gender imbalance, but it’s nothing compared to the rest of the audio industry, and there are enough women working in all areas of film that the guys don’t automatically assume we’re here to make the tea. I’m sure things will only continue to improve, slowly but surely!
Emma – that is a great story and perfect example. I wasn’t in the music industry for long before moving into post, but the discrimination I saw was wayyy worse. I had an owner (of a well known studio in NYC) flat out tell me he’d never promote a female to assistant. In LA, I was made fun of in an interview for wanting to be an engineer. A third place asked if I was pregnant or planning on having kids soon (which is illegal).
I think a lot of it is the climate set from the top down. One post story I didn’t share in the article – In my early career, I worked with an older engineer who wouldn’t ask me for help, even though I was the tech for his room. He’d walk right past me and ask the other guys for help, and they literally would have to repeat the question to me, and I’d walk in the room to fix it. I regret not pushing it further (taking it to management)… it’s a tough balance between not wanting to rock the boat and asserting what you think is right. My best experience was a facility where the manger told me day 1, “I have zero tolerance for discrimination and ego. If you have a problem, come to me first.” The dynamic and the people were amazing because of it.
I should add that I also met some fantastic engineers and producers at the same studio who thought it was great to see a girl behind the desk, and at times being an oddity did come in useful, simply because I was memorable.
You’re so right – good management can make or break a work environment. I’m glad you’ve worked with people who had your back, to make up for that engineer’s rudeness!
Thank you for this article, April. Also, from the comments, it seems obvious that we only want equal treatment, no better or worse for being a woman.
So far, being a girl has only gave me more work opportunities, just because as a girl in the industry, I stand out. But in the end, if the work is not good, we are all the same.
Even if the initial treatment is equal, I sometimes have the sensation that people in general expect us to be less skilled in technical terms, this is, equipment operation. Are we?
Now ladies, I would love to have your opinion on this too: Per Hallberg recently spoke that there is such a tendency to women in the cinema industry go in for dialogue editing, that he was even trying to push them towards sound effects editing. I find this very interesting and, where I am sitting in Stockholm, we are three girls (to a vast number of men) and one of us is actually doing dialogue editing only (on her option and she is excellent at it). Is this observable also in the USA and why do you think this might be?
I for one am elated at the interest and influx of ANYONE who is creative, professional, eager to learn and share, possessing ears and brains to match the demands of sound in all its forms and opportunities. Thank you April for sharing and I sincerely hope the masculine side of the industry realizes the benefit of having unicorns in our midst!
Great blog piece April.
We’re privileged to have a great female engineer as a part of our freelance staff who is extremely meticulous and thorough – Allison Moffett: http://creativemediarecording.com/people/#allison
She has loads experience in audio post (where we use her skills) as well as on the music side of the audio business. In the past 3 decades we’ve really seen the audio post business change and hopefully encourage ANYONE who understands the intricacies and value of AUDIO.
Tim Keenan
The frustrating part is that no one wants to be asked about their gender before their skills, but because of the biases we face, if we don’t talk about the biases and the hurdles and the bullshit sexism, we’ll ALWAYS be asked about our gender before our skills. It’s an annoying catch 22.
Took a job at a large studio facility in Atlanta; I was their first female audio/post engineer and I got: “You know how to solder?!” Yes. I know how to solder.
Great to hear everyones’ stories. Be as visible as you are comfortable with, be yourself, stand up for yourself, and we will make progress.
Thanks, April!
Hey!
Great article! Just wanted to drop by to say that I exist too, and I know a lot of us do. Might be a good thing to shout out sometimes!
Best Regards
/Elvira
Music Composer & Sound Designer at Rovio & Two Feathers.
Great article and it appears discussion is necessary to women in sound. Also interesting comments with notions of disturbed by or not disturbed by gender issues. One observation I’d like to make is, you quoted ‘What can we all do to be more inclusive/supportive of women (or other minorities) in our industry?’ Although I understand that women in this business are in the minority, as a gender we are certainly not a minority in the world (we’re a majority). No matter what our birth culture or place is we can take delight in the fact that more and more of our gender are engaging in the tech world, as well as excelling in it, and bedamned trips to Vegas (what a shithole) and roll on women who enjoy their work and unwittingly challenge the status quo in the meantime. Why would we bother our a…. wittingly do it? Marge Gunderson Fargo quote “I’m just trying to do my job here, ok” x
I hear ya… there comes a point where you just want to say, “screw it – I’m just going to do my job and do it well,” but that’s a double edged sword. Promotions and opportunities don’t just come along because of the quality of our work… they also come along because of our relationships. Early career, if you’re working at a studio (like an assistant, intern, or machine room op), you get very little client time, so there’s no way to prove that you’d be good with clients in a session. That’s why it’s so important to have a good attitude and relationships with co-workers, because it’s building trust that you could handle yourself in a session. If you get along with everyone and can quickly solve problems with people under pressure, chances are, you can do it with a client also. (This goes for anyone – not just women.)
What I was saying about being inclusive wasn’t that a group needs to be equal numbers – a team can be 20 guys and one gal and everyone be treated equally. I actually didn’t care about going to Vegas… what I cared about was that I had put a lot of effort into building relationships (especially with people skeptical of me). That decision by management not only singled me out, but it made some guys like me less, so it was a step back in those relationships.
It’s very invigorating to stumble into this conversation, as I work on creative forms of documentary film (in Europe) as a journalist and filmmaker, and in another life, would have become a sound designer if understanding the detailed engineering weren’t an obstacle for this brain. For some filmmakers, sound is right up there with picture, even if the credits for the sound team are buried on the list.
If there is any anecdotal evidence that, given an open slate, a woman would design a different type of sound for a film than a male colleague might, I’m interested to hear more please. I discovered in making my first long independent film (a many-year project), that editing to the sound first was not the norm, so my (picture) editor and I had to create a way to work together that allowed us to move back and forth between field sound, vox, and image, as the film grew organically. On another film, I’m going to be looking explicitly at how differences in hearing will lead to differences in core visual editing decisions on a documentary film (n.b. what is documentary, in the first place, is a very long discussion with so many answers and loads of disagreement, so to keep it simple: I’m interested especially in essay-like non-fiction, told in pictures and sounds, where the sound emerges from the locations and colour of voices, and will deliver another type of reality than if the documentary part were mostly driven by what one is seeing out there in the real world (or thinks one is seeing). But the world is a big place …
“If there is any anecdotal evidence that, given an open slate, a woman would design a different type of sound for a film than a male colleague might” – great question. I see it correlated to creativity, not gender. I see much more of a difference between someone who’s trained to work in sound vs someone who hasn’t. I actually saw this recently on a project where someone untrained brought me very unique and creative sound design (I actually wrote an article about it that you might find interesting – keep an eye out for it here)
Another factor might how people are creative. Some people prefer to work independently (“give me instruction on what to do, and I’ll come back with results”) and others can express it in a collaborative environment. The way you describe it reminds me of writing music, where a bass line might inspire a guitar lick, and that might inspire the singer with a melody or lyric (a team effort). Some people write brilliant music on their own, too.
Most of the projects I do I come on-board after picture is locked, but some projects definitely benefit from being involved earlier. A sound designer could develop a soundscape or style (like how a composer could be brought on early to write themes). All of that can inspire picture. I worked on a film where the color-correction was very stylistic, and we didn’t see it until almost the end of the mix! It was really inspiring, and would have changed the style of the sound design and mix if we had seen it earlier in the process.
It’s a really interesting question to explore. I hope others share their thoughts here, or feel free to contact me if you want to chat about it more.
Thank you for picking that up. All of what you wrote rings true. These positions are not mutually exclusive (I was drawn to CBC FM as a young teenager when it was still a substantive and adequately-funded public broadcaster, and stopped watching TV altogether for a couple of years, in the 1970s). In Germany now, one of the heartlands of music and sound-recording technologies, training, and production, and where women are increasingly seen in professional film sound departments in film schools (there are two in the country that are in important public film schools here), it’s a great time to take out the shovel and see what’s lying under the usual playing field. April, we can email, or perhaps just let the theme ride for a bit here so others can add whatever they wish, including if they don’t see any differences at all. I don’t want to prejudice their comments.
“If there is any anecdotal evidence that, given an open slate, a woman would design a different type of sound for a film than a male colleague might, I’m interested to hear more please.”
I agree with April here. And I believe that one -person- would design a different type of sound, than another -person-
That is to say, what we create is defined by who we are. And who we are is a jumbled up combination of our genes, upbringing, books we read, movies we saw, our friends, family, where we grew up, where we traveled, and all other big and small life experiences.
Women in Live Audio exist too! Great Article .Thanks
Of course there are women in audio. My first proper band’s FOH engineer was a woman, and yes, she used to cop all of that sexist claptrap, and a great deal of patronising “assistance” from male system engineers everywhere. She used to get the “are you one of the band member’s girlfriends?” question (which she wasn’t). Anyway, she just let her skill and experience do the talking and usually about two minutes into the soundcheck, these people would crawl away with their tails between their legs.
The thing is. it was quite rare for a punk rock band to employ a female soundie, at least back then in the early nineties, in Australia. But in my experience (which stretches back 30 or so years, both as artist and technician), female techs are invariably very good at what they do, and they don’t come with the baggage that more than a few male technicians carry, like alcoholism or drug problems, or an inability to take on the slightest constructive criticism of their work, or even to be able to accept suggestions from the artist they are working with. Maybe all of this is generalisation as well, but I did say this was my experience. Women engineers just seem to be able to listen better, which is after all a large part of the job, right?
Anyway, this isn’t just my opinion. There are now many women working in the higher echelons of the industry in Australia – the proverbial cream rising to the top. I’m pleased to be able to pass on this link about ons such woman: Virginia Read. An eminent Australian tonmeister, she won the Australian Recording Industry Association Engineer of the Year award, 2014. Virginia was nominated this year as well, and in total has been nominated 21 times – about time she won, but as you will read, she has a healthy “don’t care, I’m too busy working” attitude to the whole thing.
Whoops – forgot the link:
http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/wp/index.php/tonmeister-breaks-tradition-aria-engineer-of-the-year/
Thanks for the excellently written and insightful article (and follow-up comments) April. I’ve been fortunate enough to be mentored by and work alongside some very talented women in my career but as an industry I think we would all greatly benefit from more women in sound.
Gabe
Thanks for this great discussion. It has always served me well to remember that our differences are our strengths. Don’t accept put downs (unless you deserve them) and always call bullshit when you see it. And with that in mind I would recommend that we stop using the word “girl” to describe the women in our workplace.
(sigh) This truth conflicts me. I grew up in a family of classical musicians and in my early 20s developed an interest in audio production (you know, music with computers). I am passionate about sound, have learned the skills, and am about to finish an audio production course and feel quite confident of my ability to do sound for film/produce my own electronic music as a hobby….. but I really don’t think I have the personality required to deal with the prejudices we face! I just entered a discourse on Quora, and as predicted, was attacked by men on there who felt threatened. I don’t want to turn away from my passion, but I don’t want to deal with this omnipresent animosity! Not sure how to proceed..