1The production of symbolic goods—the conditions of which have long remained unexplored—is often the object of fantasy. Associated with art, expressivity, and personal fulfilment (Ryle & Sooper 2002; Umney & Krestos 2015), such production is even considered to be the cutting edge of the organization of work within contemporary capitalism (Boltanski & Chiapello 2007; Menger 2015), and is frequently portrayed as exemplary of “ideal work” (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011): autonomous, entrepreneurial, and unaffected by material constraints and social inequalities (Coulangeon 2004; Sinigaglia 2013, 2017). Such idealized images, by overemphasizing the expressive dimension, pleasure, giving of oneself, and the idea of a vocation or passion profession, ignore the practical implications of this work, particularly in terms of income, working conditions, and how one “makes a career out of it.”

2Within the context of the cultural industries, the notion of a career goes beyond an individual’s history of doing a certain kind of work (or associated activities). It is closer to a heteroclite assemblage of often necessary yet insufficient variables: training, recognition by the public or one’s peers, compensation, length of time in the field, primary/secondary activities, recordings, concerts. Careers in these industries take many forms (Perrenoud & Bataille 2018) but unfold in working conditions that are in part specific to this sector. Cultural workers tend to be younger, more qualified, and more urban than other professional groups. They often work as independent contractors but tend to be unwillingly under-employed (i.e. involuntary part-time work, irregular work) and to earn variable incomes. In keeping with the logic of “winner takes all” (Caves 2002), wage inequalities are significant, and professional engagements are often precarious, if not simply unpaid (Perrenoud 2007; Peyrin 2008; Sinigaglia 2007). Thus, making a career in the cultural industries, and especially in the music industry—is an uncertain proposition, and for many, precarity is a structural element of the job that must be taken into account (Bataille, Casse & Perrenoud 2019).

4Certain forms of inequality are particularly pronounced within this sector. For example, gender inequality—which is also present in other sectors—is reinforced by the structuration of the cultural industries, and music in particular (Buscatto 2009, 2019; Coulangeon, Ravet & Roharik 2005). The most prestigious positions, and those that provide the most social and professional recognition, remain difficult to access for women (Ravet 2016; Taylor 2011). Stereotypes tend to reduce women to “mere” performers (Prévost-Thomas & Ravet 2007) and to consider them singers more so than musicians, particularly within popular music (Hatzipetrou-Andronikou 2011; Ravet 2014). There is also a marked division of labour between the sexes: women are often given jobs in organization and management rather than creative positions, which are more highly regarded (Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011; Ravet 2014). They are less well paid, more likely to be subject to unpredictable forms of employment, and more often at risk of losing their work (Conor, Gill & Taylor 2015; O’Brien et al. 2016; Coulangeon, Ravet & Roharik 2005; Wing-Fai, Gill & Randle 2015). Overall, it seems that features of the sector—in particular, a high rate of independent work and a culture of self-promotion and informal recruitment—favour men (Wreyford 2015). Similarly, the entrepreneurial mindset, which is highly valued in the cultural industries (Hatzipetrou-Andronikou 2011) and emphasizes being flexible, networked, energetic, and enterprising, is generally associated with white heterosexual men of middle-class background or above. In such conditions, women must learn to overcome the pitfalls of femininity (Buscatto 2009, 2019), by developing “strategies of transgression that allow them, in spite of everything, to create works of music in their name.” The equilibrium is, however, delicate and precarious, since women must respond to the new entrepreneurial injunctions without being seen as “troublemakers” even as they assert themselves (Wreyford 2015).

5Moreover, the inequalities that can be observed result most often from a combination of multiple relations of domination, based not only on gender but also ethnicity and social class. Other social identities may also play a role: sexual orientation, age, nationality, religion, and disability. These identities play a role not as properties of individuals but rather insofar as individuals are socially perceived through them alone: it is the fact of being reduced to these identities that shapes both female musicians’ self-esteem and the recognition they gain, and, more broadly, determines what opportunities are available to them and their ability to have fulfilling lives and careers (Choo & Marx Ferree 2010; Friedman & Laurison 2019; Hill Collins & Bilge 2016; Marx Ferree 2018; Sayer 2009). The goal of this article is to attempt to integrate, as other research has done (Delaporte et al. 2022), the effects that class background, ethnicity, age, and other factors have on career opportunities and, beyond that, on life experiences and opportunities.

6This article seeks to shed new light on the careers of female musicians by paying particular attention to these women’s dispositions and reflexivity in relation to intersecting social identities (gender, age, class background, ethnicity, kinship) that differentially distribute career opportunities. I focus on the trajectories of independent, self-produced female musicians who make popular music and who live in specific neighbourhoods in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Portland, Stockholm, and Paris. I will return to this choice of subjects and sites in order to show that (1) some of the difficulties interviewees encountered were differentially distributed as a function of their social identities and (2) that it is only possible for these female musicians to create careers by being reflexive and adaptable.

1. Observation of the Careers of Female “DIY” Musicians in Brooklyn, Paris, Portland, San Francisco, and Stockholm

1. 1. A Longitudinal, Multi-site Study

7The results presented in this article are based on a longitudinal observation and interview study conducted between 2008 and 2016 with approximately 250 subjects (30% of whom were women) who were recruited using the “snowball” method (Clark & Adler 2014). Observation of the subjects’ careers over a period of this length has made it possible to analyse their career developments as well as fluctuations in their lifestyles and working conditions (Ruspini 2002). It has also served to reduce two forms of bias: the bias that would result from considering a single moment in subjects’ lives as an immutable present (whereas the music industry operates in terms of “hits” and projects, which means that media exposure and revenue fluctuate over time), and the bias that results from individuals speaking of the present moment through the lens of a retrospective illusion by which they eliminate certain past moments, either to decrease their painfulness or to better conform to social expectations (Gomm 2004).

8Out of this group of subjects, a smaller sample of 32 musicians (22 men and 10 women, all of whom were cisgender) was selected on a voluntary basis according to the criteria listed below and in conjunction with peer recommendation, ensuring the proportional representation of each city. Either semi-structured or informal interviews were held with these musicians, depending on context, and all subjects were aged between 25 and 37 years, with at least 3 years in the music industry at the time of the first interview. In addition to characteristics such as age, gender, parents’ occupations, and place of birth, female musicians were asked about their living conditions (housing, resources, social environment) and working conditions as well as their representations and experiences (i.e., injunctions they perceived and satisfactions they experienced in practicing their professions). The often-informal nature of these exchanges allowed interviewees to express themselves more freely and to evoke certain psychosocial aspects of their living conditions (self-esteem, recognition, stress, anxiety, imposter syndrome, frustrations). Discourse analysis of their lived experiences brought out the obstacles they faced as well as the adaptations they made to remain in their careers.

9Artistic work is known to resist observation and analysis (Becker 1963). Studies that use observation and interview are particularly valuable when it comes to fields that are “rarely observed from ‘within’,” and they make it possible to carry out “contemporary ethnographies of artistic work” (Buscatto 2008) in order to grasp vernacular practices of self-performance and to bring out practices that remain hidden from those outside the milieu (Becker 1963). But as Buscatto observes, “identifying feelings, experiences, and strategies for masking the realities of the job may require the researcher to have direct experience of the artistic activity.” In this case, my own involvement in practices similar to my subjects’ meant I was able to share the everyday lives of interviewees over the course of several years, from stages and recording sessions to more intimate spaces; the boundaries between the private and professional spheres in this sector tend to be porous. This long-term immersion allowed me to participate in seemingly unimportant everyday moments in which the challenges of self-production play out: moments of self-doubt, attempts, projections, and bifurcations. These moments, by dint of repetition (and sometimes unexpected flashes of insight), reveal the negotiations that go on in the background of this line of work.

10Such proximity to the field demands constant and retrospective reflexivity. “Traces” of the field in any form (interviews, recordings, photos, notes) constitute precious material to be handled with caution. Thus, the long-term fieldwork and analysis described above also allowed for a form of ethnographic self-analysis (Weber 2009) that traces its lineage back to practices of radical doubt (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992) that incite one to question one’s reasons for engaging in fieldwork and analysis. Such self-analysis involves taking into account the researcher’s social proximity to or distance from their field, and constantly shuttling back and forth between the experience of the field and the process of objectivizing it and one’s lived experiences (Wacquant 2011). The results presented here emerged from such objectivization, while my proximity to the field provided a refined understanding of situations and underlying meanings, which I was able to mobilize in my analysis.

11Although different geographical contexts imply different lived experiences of being a practicing musician (Perrenoud & Bataille 2018), this article does not adopt a comparative approach, but rather seeks to bring out what is shared in common between certain urban spaces. In this case, these spaces were city neighbourhoods well-known as breeding grounds for cultural workers (Lloyd 2010; Vivant 2010): Brooklyn (Williamsburg, Bushwick), San Francisco (Mission District), Oakland (West Oakland, Temescal, Rockridge), Portland (Alberta, King/Boise), Stockholm (Södermalm, Sofo) and Paris (Northeast Paris). In these neighbourhoods, networks of acquaintanceship provide stimulating professional opportunities (Guibert 2012; Neff 2005), which appear to be an essential condition for career development and side-job opportunities. Of course, each of these sites has its own particularities, some of which are national, such as access to health care or to the welfare state (i.e., the status of intermittent performing arts worker [intermittent du spectacle] in France or conditions for accessing unemployment benefits and minimum social benefits), how skin colour is viewed, or how the music market is structured. However, beyond such differences, through this multisite study I have sought to bring out similarities in terms of lifestyles and working conditions (McRobbie 2015), in much the same way that multisite ethnographies do (Marcus 1995). Transnational analysis of the production and reproduction of inequalities based on class, gender, and ethnic origin makes it possible to show that these inequalities are not merely contextual (Choo & Marx Ferree 2010).

1. 2. “DIY” Musicians

12The sample created as part of this study made visible a category of “DIY” female musicians that had previously been understudied and which is often not captured by statistics (Hesmondhalgh et al. 2021; Vachet, Bubendorff & Gourvès 2022). Although defining a professional (rather than an amateur or semi-professional) musician is already problematic in many respects (Oakley & O’Brien 2015), lower barriers and lower production and distribution costs thanks to digital technology have made the boundaries between these categories even blurrier. In the present case, all the interviewees discussed in this article make “niche,” self-produced, “DIY,” or independent music. However, these terms are so polysemous that they often resist analysis (Alexandre, Pinto & Noël 2021; Pinto & Noël 2018). These women musicians typically write their own music, and are performers, sound engineers, and producers in turn. In addition, they often manage many aspects of their careers without the assistance of cultural intermediaries such as bookers, managers, art directors, administrative and financial assistants, graphic designers, and communications and PR specialists. Their musical aesthetic resists traditional labels—some describe it as drone or experimental music, others as psychedelic pop, dream pop, etc. Their work is often put out by small independent labels. Although heavily involved in their work, they frequently encounter difficulties in making a career out of music, and, in a context in which digital technology is supposed to make more accessible a know-how previously reserved for only a few, they are above all confronted with the imperative to do everything themselves.

13In contrast to other categories of performing artists such as intermittent du spectacle (intermittent performing arts workers), which have been analysed in depth, these female musicians fall outside of the traditional segments of the sector that are protected by institutionalization—such as so-called “classical” music and jazz—or by commercial success. They nevertheless are part of the “talent pool” of new talent that is fundamental to the aesthetic renewal of the music industry, which is structured as an oligopoly with fringes (Miège 1989). These women are different from “ordinary musicians” in that they do not have the option of performing adjacent forms of paid work such as performing at dance parties, business events, or as background music in bars (Perrenoud 2007). They must often hold (at least) one other job outside of the independent music industry in order to offset precarity (Bureau, Perrenoud & Shapiro 2009; Caves 2002; Menger 2006; Throsby & Zednik 2011).

2. Short-lived Success: The Development of Women’s Careers Curtailed by a Constant Quest for the New

14An initial form of inequality in music careers results from the independent music industry’s constant demand for new talent and novelty (Miège 1989)—demands that appear particularly unfavourable to women. Indeed, the pride of place given to newcomers limits chances for career development.

15Anita is a good example of such difficulty in persisting within a space defined by rapid obsolesce. She is a Swedish musician, living in Stockholm and of middle-class background, but her struggles in making a career of music have gradually led her to abandon it. In 2010, when I first met her, she had just recorded a self-produced album that was put out by a large independent label. In the weeks following the album’s release, her music was widely disseminated on major music blogs and magazines. After several months, her songs began to be played on the radio and national television, and she was invited to perform at major European music festivals. She was celebrated by the media, but her music was described as “fresh, dreamy, and innocent”—adjectives that tended to emphasize her “femininity” and youth and thus to reduce her to her gender and age.

16In 2015, five years after the release of her first album, Anita revealed in an interview that she was going through a difficult time. She had made new music, which she described as “less ‘child-woman’ and more ‘woman’”, but it had not paid off as she had hoped:

The relative success I had was quick, a bit unexpected. At the beginning, I didn’t understand what was happening to me, but now it hurts that people aren’t interested in my music. They like young musicians who are just now getting their break. I tried playing a different style of music, but it didn’t work. People don’t like my music anymore.

17Later, Anita confided that she had “desperately tried to get the same media exposure and recognition as in the beginning.” Jaded by what she identifies as the functioning of the music industry, she associates her failure with the fact that the industry “takes young people, pushes them, pressures them, and then throws them away, taking in new ones.”

18Just before turning 30, Anita decided to break the contract that bound her to a label and a booking agency and to go back to school for art. She felt she had little chance of making a career out of music, since the project she was working on was not having the success she had counted on. Well aware of the fact that the music industry sequesters women to the gendered roles of singer or backup singer (Buscatto 2009), she felt there was little chance of her being able to convert her career into an adjacent profession, since the technical jobs that surround recording and performing remain “very male” and she had no interest in coordination and support roles—jobs that are more willingly given to women (Gaudy 2008; Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2011; Ravet 2014).

19Anita’s case is significant: it shows that it is not only a matter of finding work within the independent music industry, but of actually making a career within it. Her case also shows that the strategies of the independent music industries make this particularly challenging, since they involve the constant renewal of the supply of symbolic goods—and of their producers, given the close association between content and creators—and the reduction of female musicians to gender stereotypes. Thus, the bulk of inequalities lies not so much in accessing the job market (where studies have shown that inequalities are fairly minor), but rather in the possibility of building a career. This difficulty in remaining in the field, which is connected to the exaltation of youth and the specific expectations for women of the cultural industries and their specific expectations for women, is one of the elements that explains both the distinct drop-off in women over 35 in the creative professions (Cooper, Coles & Hanna-Osborne 2017) and their relatively less successful career trajectories (Buscatto 2019).

3. The Challenge of Combining a Career and Parenthood

20A further difficulty independent female musicians encounter has to do with motherhood. Earlier works have established significant sex- and gender-based inequalities with respect to parenthood (Buscatto 2009; Hochschild & Machung 1989; Provansal 2018; Ravet 2003). Among my research subjects, parenthood is even often kept at bay, so irreconcilable does it seem with a music career. Thus, many of the women interviewed spoke of “the impossibility of having children” given the working conditions in their sector. It is true that the women in the sample were relatively young and were living in urban settings where a woman’s average age at first pregnancy is higher than elsewhere. But in addition, for these women to imagine themselves as mothers might bring up the social expectation of compulsory maternity (Gill 2014), and in this respect, refusing to imagine maternity might appear as a form of resistance. However, in my interviews, subjects spoke of maternity not so much as something they decided against but rather as an impossibility. The fact is that the emotional and physical level of involvement that a music career requires as well as the sociability necessary to maintain a network leaves little room for a personal life. Given the difficulty these women have had in breaking into the sector and their constant struggle to make a career out of it, maternity can compromise both the efforts they have already made and their ability to continue to make such efforts, while at the same time, the requirements of the profession seem to diminish the very possibility of maternity. The issue of an impossible reconciliation of demands on time came up in particular among the Parisian musicians in my sample:

How could I possibly make do if I had a kid? I just don’t have the time. You don’t turn down a gig because you have to go pick up your kids at school. You work late nights and weekends. Unless you have a guy who doesn’t work, or a 24-hour nanny, you just can’t. Not to mention that I’d have to manage to settle down… (Angèle, 34 years old, middle-class background, Paris)

When would I possibly have a kid, seriously? First, I’d have to find a guy. Raising a kid on your own, that’s too much for me. (Martine, 28 years old, middle-class background, Paris)

It’s not a question of wanting to or whatever, it’s just that my career takes up all the room. It’s good to do what you love, but yes, it also takes up all my time. No, I don’t have the time. (Géraldine, 33 years old, middle-class background, Paris)

21And indeed, women with familial responsibilities are often unable to access new job opportunities, which plays a role in their gradual exclusion from the sector.

22Although men are also affected by the difficulty of balancing professional and parental obligations, the characteristics of work in the independent music industry particularly hinder women, since they tend to face more discrimination within the profession and to have sole responsibility for raising children. Alicia, a 32-year-old American musician living in Paris and of middle-class American background (both her parents are salaried employees) describes the arrangements she has made so she can continue to tour:

It hasn’t been easy since having a kid. We organized a tour through the U.S. last year. My boyfriend is a musician in my band (and other bands), but it was because of my mom that we were able to tour. She was with us the whole time in the RV we had. That worked out because she was available; otherwise, I don’t see how I could have done that tour. But it’s the same problem every time. I can’t leave my kid with a nanny for a few days while I play shows, let alone if I go out on tour. So in a way it’s always kind of pushing the problem back until later…

23This example of a musician couple illustrates the gendered difference in parenthood, for it is Alicia’s career that seems to constitute the “problem,” rather than her partner’s. And we see that whereas both parents have similar professional situations, or at least are in the same line of work, the responsibility for organizing childcare seems to fall on mothers. These inequalities between the sexes, which are also found in other professional sectors, are here reinforced by working conditions in the independent music industry: long hours, mandatory in-person presence, unpredictable work hours, and “addictive” relationships to work (Rowlands & Handy 2012), within a context where responsibility for childcare, even after early childhood, remains unequally distributed between parents, to the disadvantage of women (Hochschild & Machung 1989; Wing-Fai et al. 2015).

4. Class-based Attitudes toward Precarity

24A third factor behind career inequalities within the independent music industry lies in the risk that characterizes such careers. The level of involvement required of musicians is often significant, but compensation is uncertain (Sinigaglia 2013). Observation suggested that the female musicians in this study alternate between periods of intense engagement (projects, tours, recording) and periods of low activity. But such alternating, which is crucial to career development, seems to be experienced differently depending on class background.

25From participant observation and interviews, it became clear that individuals with greater economic, cultural, and social capital adapt better to the systemic social and economic contingencies of the independent music industry. Caroline, a 32-year-old French musician who emigrated to Brooklyn and whose parents both work in the cultural industries, expressed this: “my mom told me that it’s normal to have in-between times, so I don’t doubt myself too much when I don’t have work. I know it will come back.” Like the best-resourced unemployed workers (Schnapper 1994), female musicians from these backgrounds seem to successfully take advantage of moments of transition in order to develop the non-technical skills necessary for their future work.

26In contrast, individuals from working-class backgrounds appear to face more difficulty in confronting these moments of transition and to be more inclined to doubt themselves and “panic” (Allen 2016). Sophie, who is 27 years old, lives in Paris, and is of lower-middle-class background, thus confesses the distress she experiences in these moments: “I stay in my pyjamas all day and tell myself I’m worthless.” Thus, schemas of discrimination go beyond the direct effects of economic and social capital. They also include a specific habitus that is the privilege of those endowed with the most economic and symbolic capital: one characterized by a confidence towards life and a view of precarity as always temporary (Duvoux 2023). This class-based disposition is especially valuable within a system where project-based work is the norm, and where periods of intense activity (writing music, recording it, touring, commissioned work, etc.) often alternate with less active periods.

27Inequality in terms of class background also stems from the “safety net” of parental aid—even if such aid is never actually drawn on. Whether it is actually utilized or serves solely as a source of reassurance, the presence of this safety net determines career orientations by allowing greater risk-taking. Family support can indeed soften the consequences of a failure—at least financially. Even for older musicians, such support often tempers the precarity and low income of a music career.

28Mathilde, who is of lower-middle-class background, lives without a “safety net,” and feels extremely stressed and anxious that she will not “make it.” Although her work with a non-profit organization provides a veneer of economic stability (albeit with the precarious status of a self-employed person), she struggles to imagine a future:

I’m financially independent, which makes a big difference. You don’t have the same freedom. You can’t think about the future and be all that relaxed about all your decisions when you know you’re just getting by as far as money. You realize that even if you’re creative and you like to be carefree, well, utopia isn’t for everyone. It’s for sure a lot simpler for him [a colleague from the “Parisian bourgeoisie”]. I have to think about making a living. I have to pay my bills. To make ends meet, I work as a secretary too. I’m super stressed and anxious, but he always seems like he’s super relaxed, the cool guy.

29Uncertainty, explains Mathilde, prevents her from being able to concentrate on her work, and leads her to make bad decisions and miss opportunities. A lack of economic capital and “safety net” thus negatively impacts both female musicians’ daily lives and their futures.

30Beyond the possibility of making a living from one’s work or of living a good enough life, including by holding side jobs, precarity and the uncertainty that goes with it create general dispositions that affect career opportunities. Indeed, it seems that in this job sector, the ability to access appropriate professional opportunities is contingent on possession of certain dispositions: being relaxed, even nonchalant, and above all, confident—dispositions that are linked to a “distance from necessity” (Bourdieu 1984: 53). In contrast to this, Mathilde feels her anxiety has a negative impact on her everyday interactions and reduces her professional opportunities. Indeed, by making individuals less open to others, anxiety can limit professional opportunities, especially in a sector where these are in large part linked to social capital and self-presentation (Vachet 2024). Many of the working-class and lower-middle-class interviewees I spoke to were thus conscious of the expectations of their milieu and their inability to meet them; their anxiety is amplified by their inability to “be cool” (which is in itself partially a result of anxiety). Like Mathilde, these female musicians are aware of the gap between their way of being and a more desirable one, but they don’t have the means to develop it, for changing such incorporated dispositions over the long term is unimaginable:

He [her co-worker from a higher social milieu] has more freedom than I do to think about this or that…There’s always some little thing that keeps you from feeling chill and relaxed. It prevents you from doing things. So his arty side, and his lightness…I can’t have that. I can’t allow myself to be carefree. I’m much stricter than he is. I mean, ok, we’re all a bit crazy, but we don’t have the same background, and that counts for a lot. I’m from the lower middle class and Marcus, he’s from the old guard Parisian bourgeoisie. They have property, it’s the Parisian bourgeoisie, you know. So the difference plays out in how we see everyday life. I’m a pretty chilled person, which means if this project doesn’t work out, I’ll get moving right away. He’s not like that, and good for him. We’re not the same, financially speaking.

31The dispositions these female musicians lack are in fact class dispositions: they are the result of being socialized within the upper classes, and constitute incorporated forms of cultural capital (ease, self-confidence) and economic capital (a safety net against precarity).

32These class inequalities are multiplied by gender inequalities. Mathilde, for example, says that she is “too anxious to hang out with people like you’re supposed to,” and above all, “to seem cool and relaxed.” Nicknamed “the sheriff”, she considers herself “obsessed with control,” while she describes her colleague as “the cool one.” Such dispositions also stem from how girls are socialized. Mathilde herself noted on several occasions the tendency she and her colleague have to reproduce class and gender roles. Indeed, the effects of gender amplify those of class background, creating unfavourable objective conditions (economic precarity and a lack of family financial support) as well as dispositions (anxiety, low self-esteem, strictness, rigor, intransigence, difficulty in relaxing and contemplating the future) that are linked to gender more so than to class. Mathilde’s case thus shows how gender stereotypes function to maintain the social order of this art world.

5. Different Opportunities for Side Jobs Depending on Class and Gender

33A fourth factor in career inequalities based on class background and gender lies in the kinds of professional activities musicians engage in alongside their music careers. In general, non-music work—which is often necessary to remain in a music career—corresponds to assigned positions based on class background. While some interviewees from the upper-middle and upper classes hold jobs ranging from software programmer to owner of a hip coffee shop in an arty neighbourhood to freelance consultant, those from milieus with less cultural and economic capital often perform more subordinate forms of work. And these second kinds of work have an impact on music careers, insofar as these jobs provide varying levels of income and flexibility, which make it more or less difficult to combine a music career with a professional life outside of music. Vanessa, whose parents are both middle school teachers, explains the flexibility her work as a programmer allows her:

I’m a software programmer. It isn’t fascinating work, but at least it pays well, I get benefits and my schedule is pretty flexible. I can take time off to tour and then go back to work. (Vanessa, 25 years old, middle-class background, Brooklyn)

34Similarly, Lucie (father an entrepreneur in the construction industry; mother a writer) works in Portland as an administrator for a venue. She has a work contract, but the job is part-time and often remote, which allows her the freedom to dedicate herself to her music:

I’m lucky, they’re like my family. They’re cool with my music projects. I mean, I can work for them while I’m on tour. That means I can perform and organize my time flexibly. (Lucie, 26 years old, middle-class background, Portland)

35In contrast, interviewees of working-class and lower-middle-class background are more likely to hold more precarious jobs, sometimes in professions where social representations associated with the female body play an important role. Thus, some work as servers in bars or as event hostesses. This is in particular the case among the younger women and those whose physical appearance is most likely to be valorised by a male clientele, for example, because of certain hairstyles, tattoos, or styles of dressing. Others are not able to access such work and hold jobs that do not require contact with clientele.

36Laetitia, who is 27 years old, of working-class background, and lives in Portland thus ascribes her bar job to her personal characteristics—in particular, her appearance:

It’s obvious they hired me because I’m pretty and I’m cool. I have a good relationship with the clients. I like to dress a bit different; I have tattoos and piercings. It looks cool to have a musician as a bartender; they know I do music.

37In contrast, Angela, a Black 34-year-old also living in Portland, whose mother was a nurse’s aide and whose father was unemployed and died young, works in the cramped, artificially lit offices of a mall. She attended community college, where she obtained a professional certificate. Thanks to her work as a music event organizer, she has managed over the past ten years to break into the cloistered sector of independent experimental music, and her work organizing parties has allowed her to earn a bit of money under the table, which she can funnel back into her music career. But the bulk of her income comes from her office work which, while uninteresting and only minimally paid, provides her with a certain level of financial stability: “I work in a fucking mall, it’s the shittiest job in the world.” This job, however, offers the benefit of allowing her to spend some of her time at work organizing parties:

The only reason, well, ok, not really the only, but the main reason why I work there, the shittiest job in the world—although my bosses are great—is because I sit in front of a computer 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. So I don’t even need a computer at home, I can do my booking work from the office.

38The arrangement Angela describes with ambivalence should not obscure the fact that within a context of precarity, economic, social, and cultural capital, which are primarily connected to one’s class background, remain discriminating factors, to which other social traits such as gender, age, or physical capital are added, and which can directly impact either a music career itself or the ability to access other forms of work which, in turn, make it more or less possible to pursue one’s career.

6. Societal Expectations, Representations, and Ethnic and Cultural Essentialization

39The fifth type of inequality within the careers of female musicians that emerged from my research stems from phenomena of ethnic and cultural essentialization, which are combined with the effects of social class and gender and which Angela’s case makes apparent. As a Black woman of lower-middle-class background coming up in Portland’s independent music scene, which is primarily made up of white, middle-class men, Angela must confront stereotypes:

I think people see me as someone who knows how to create an ambiance at parties; at least, I think. Basically, I know everyone, in every scene. They see me as an extroverted woman, full of energy. That’s what people say. They also say I’m intimidating, which is weird because I collect action figures and I smoke weed and I feel like I’m accessible and everything but, you know, people…

40Angela is immediately likeable and pleasant. She considers her role to be to “put people at ease” and “spread her energy to others.” But this highlighting of her energy and capacity to create social bonds reminds us that certain stigmatized ethnic groups are the objects of projections and fantasies associating them with pleasure, sociability, and energy. Such representations may make members of these groups socially desirable (Hesmondhalgh & Saha 2013), but they also imply heavy emotional labour on their part (Hochschild 2017; Kumanyika & Elavsky 2013).

41At the same time, Angela feels that she is watched, and must not take up “too much space.” If, as a woman, she must know how to “sell herself” (Scharff 2015), she also has to avoid seeming like a “troublemaker” (Wreyford 2015) and must even remain silent in order not to appear a threat. These contradictory demands, which cannot simultaneously be satisfied, correspond to a typical gendered social position that requires a delicate balance between putting oneself forward and effacing oneself. In an interview, Angela describes herself as “passionate and sometimes intimidating”:

I’m a real nerd. Yes, I collect Star Trek action figures. I have a ton of cards and figurines. You know the type, science fiction things. I’m a cyberpunk. A cyberpunk with a computer [laughs]. I’m very passionate and I have my convictions, that’s for sure, but I’m a loyal friend and once you’re in my circle of friends, I don’t let you go [laughs]. It’s pretty fusional, but it takes time to happen.

42However, this self-perception does not match the position she is socially assigned to as a Black woman. Within the especially uncomfortable situation produced by these discordances, Angela has fortunately developed a very particular awareness of these demands and the possibility of meeting them.

43Nadia’s case shows that reduction to cultural stereotypes does not only affect Black women. A 36-year-old Swedish musician whose father is Japanese and whose mother is a white Swedish woman, Nadia experiences a form of societal expectation that she performs her “Japaneseness.” According to stereotypes, such “Japaneseness” implies kindness, humility, a soft voice, and the use of traditional instruments such as the koto (a traditional Japanese zither). Such expectations, as Nadia stated during participant observation of a recording session, are not stated explicitly, especially within the milieu in which she works. But when she displays this “Japaneseness” in order to respond to what she experiences as an implicit social expectation, she receives feedback connecting her to a culture to which, ultimately, she tells me, she has little connection. Such respect for social roles seems to reassure others, even if Nadia finds that “the costume itches”, since her staging of herself never quite lives up to the stereotypes. In contrast, when she chooses not to highlight her Japanese cultural origins, she is sometimes met with astonishment, as if “all of [her] gestures should reveal [her] Japanese origins.”

44Thus, the independent music industry reproduces the most typical forms of discrimination towards women from racial minorities and working- or lower-middle-class backgrounds. On the other hand, these groups might also have access to unexpected opportunities (Taylor & Littleton 2008), insofar as their alterity can allow for a kind of “margin marketing”—without, however, cancelling out stigmatization (Hammou 2016). We see this phenomenon in other sectors such as large corporations, which emphasize their “diversity” and “inclusion” (Bereni & Prud’homme 2019), and among elites who make a show of their cosmopolitanism in order to better maintain social inequalities (Rahman Khan 2015).

45Moreover, as Debonneville has shown to be the case for dancers and choreographers from racial minorities (Debonneville 2021), the subversion of projections and imaginaries directed towards minority individuals can allow for the development of new aesthetics. In spite of the pressure she feels, Angela converts stereotypes into opportunity: “Paradoxically, I think that that they let me put on these dumb concerts because I’m a Black woman. It has to be good for something.” Nadia has a similar feeling of being able to benefit from the position she is associated with: “Paradoxically, my Japanese origins are fairly valorised insofar as I’m the only one doing what I do on the independent scene here. It’s like a niche they put me in.”

46Thus, by respecting the positions to which they are socially assigned (even if discriminatory), the female musicians interviewed here are able to access the independent music scene and to participate more or less actively in the social life of this art world, without thereby calling into question the status quo. But what authorizes them to be present in these creative milieus are specific social norms they have internalized, and which lead them to display the identity with which they are associated. Thus, Angela, at a significant cost in terms of emotional labour, takes on the role of the Black woman, strong and joyful in spite of the suffering caused by having to portray herself according to discriminatory stereotypes. Sequestered to stereotyped roles based on gender, class, and ethnic identities, the artists in question can only remain active through constant negotiations and an indispensable distancing from their own position in the field.

Conclusion: The Impact of Social Identities on Career Opportunities

47Within a context in which music careers are generally precarious and uncertain to the point of affecting mental and physical health (Vachet et al. 2022), this article shows that these careers are also affected by significant social inequalities resulting from various relations of domination such as ethnicity, gender, and class, which often operate in combination.

48If it is difficult to “break into” the music business, it is even more challenging to make a career within it. The music industry, like the cultural industries more broadly, is constantly looking to renew its output by turning to new artists; that is, by drawing on a talent pool of creative workers who live in precarity. This structural particularity is especially harmful to female artists, who are constantly reduced to gender stereotypes and subject to expectations of “freshness,” which favour the youngest artists and reduce career opportunities.

49In addition, the characteristics of work within this sector (the amount and breadth of hours required, unpredictability, mandatory in-person presence, networking) weigh particularly heavily on women, who continue to shoulder a large share of familial responsibilities. Some also find that their career opportunities gradually shrink because they are unable to meet the standards for how one is supposed to engage with the work. Others give up on the idea of motherhood due to the intense physical and emotional engagement the career requires.

50The effects of social class combine with those of sex and gender, for beyond mobilizable economic and social resources, the precarity of this line of work seems to be attenuated by the dispositions of those fortunate enough to enjoy more economic, social, and cultural capital. In contrast, interviewees from the lower-middle and working classes tend to consider the difficulties they face signs of a lack of individual skills rather than as the consequences of structural dynamics. Their reactions to this doubt tend to deprive them of exciting job opportunities within a context where “acting cool” is part of the social representation of an artist.

51Although precarity in these careers is often compensated for by adjacent work, usually outside of the independent music industry, the latter also seem to be differentially distributed on the basis of social identities. Those with the most economic, cultural, and social capital benefit from better-paying job opportunities that give them greater flexibility with their time, which allows them to better combine (although not unrestrictedly) their musical work with their professional lives outside of music. Those with less economic, social, and cultural capital have fewer options, and often hold second jobs that are also precarious.

52Furthermore, social representations associated with the female body and with ethnicity play a more significant role among these less-resourced individuals. Ethnicity (as it is socially perceived) unequally distributes professional opportunities, both musical and otherwise. At the same time, a social injunction to highlight one’s alterity, which the interviewees in question have internalized, restricts them to archetypal roles that require additional emotional labour. Awareness of the hierarchies created by social traits is what allows these interviewees to negotiate a place for themselves within the sector, by partially conforming to social injunctions in the service of making a career.

53This is a far cry from the phantasmagoric model of the free and flourishing artist. In distinction to a tendency to “hold individuals responsible” through an emphasis on entrepreneurship within the cultural industries, we see here the decisive role played by the conditions of production of symbolic goods, for the mental and physical costs of these careers, as well as the precarity and inequalities that affect how individuals enter and endure in the field, are marked by multiple relations of domination, which often accumulate and even compound.