As previously discussed on Do Androids Dance, the issues facing women and their evolution towards being equally respected members of the electronic dance music community is certainly a story to watch for the future. In telling that story and hoping for an eventual conclusion where men and women who produce and DJ are respected equally, there is an absolute need to have an eye to the future of women in production. That's where Brooklyn, NY-based singer/songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Barra and the Indiegogo campaign to fund her female empowerment through production Beats by Girlz program comes into play.
Upon recently releasing her latest work (and all remix project), Barra - a professional digital consultant and product specialist for Ableton Live, and the only woman there who does that line of work - decided to use it to spearhead an initiative that blends her position in the industry with a desire to empower women. When reached for comment, Barra said, "Beats By Girlz is an initiative with the Lower East Side Girls Club which is powered by education, arts and most importantly actions. Initially we’ll be reaching young women in NY, teaching them how to ‘Make Beats’, ‘The Basics of DJing’, ‘Remixing Tracks’ and ‘How to record a Demo’. These classes will become the building blocks for a open source, female powered webs series which will be available in 2014 to anyone."
Recently, movements like Black Girls Code have gained favor in fast-paced world of the successfully early to adopt and quick to adapt technology sector. As the weeks and months go by though, it would appear as though EDM is moving in a similar trajectory insofar as pace of information and advancement, but slow on the development of adoption and adaption processes to give the industry the appearance of being a wildly different environment than it ever has been. Regarding the future, Barra says the following:
"The future of the music industry lies in the technology and there are so many potential opportunities for women to have great careers in technical fields that are typically done by men. "[Young women should] not only be the people that stand behind a microphone, but also the people who sit behind the computer. We need to enable these girls to go from content consumers to content creators...to literally re-write the story and create their own environment which represents them properly."
