The work that genre does: How music genre mediates gender inequalities in the informal work cultures of Amsterdam's nightclubs

Abstract

This article builds on the emerging literature on relation between music genre and social inequalities in the cultural industries. It specifically highlights the role of two localised, genre-specific value systems (the niche-edm genre and the eclectic genre) to understand how and why the gendered outcomes of genres vary across space. Based on qualitative interviews with 36 (mostly white, male) promoters for nightclubs in Amsterdam, it finds that in one genre of nightclubs (niche-orientated electronic dance music) an informal political culture around gender inequalities has emerged. While this does not change the gendered hierarchies of labour participation, it does alter cultural production practices. To understand the workings of genre further, the article compares niche-orientated electronic dance music clubs with eclectic clubs (pop, r&b, dancehall), where an informal political culture is largely absent. While both genres are characterised by similar gender inequalities in cultures of production, there are differences in the gendered meanings of the club nights the two genres produce. In the eclectic genre, gender is made sense of through regulation, where ‘women-friendly’ functions as a label that essentialises the connection between gender and genre in an attempt to create trouble-free dancefloors. In the niche-edm genre, gender is made sense of through representation on line-ups, which mirrors debates in other artistic disciplines. By deconstructing the ideal of the ‘autonomous artist’ as masculine, critical promoters (and consumers) question cultural classification systems.