Letter for Trades and Manufacturers

Use this template or edit it to your liking to send to trade magazines, manufactuerers, and companies in the audio industry.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you to bring attention to your advertising campaigns that continually feature male engineers. It is important to consider the lack of diversity in the music industry and professional audio. It is important to consider your entire customer base.

While women and other marginalized groups may currently make up a small segment of the people working in the industry, it is important to include them and make sure their experiences are reflected. The problem is not merely that women’s voices are absent, but that when they are present, they serve to further reinforce stereotypes and traditional gender roles. We continue to see women represented in this industry with headlines such as “What is it like being a female engineer?” “Women’s Hearing is Better – So Why aren’t there more Women Audio Engineers?” and “Where are all the Women?” We want to move past this and see female, male, and non-binary engineers featured equally.

Ebonie Smith wrote an outstanding article that moves the conversation past this “Why Are Female Music Producers Everywhere, Yet So Invisible? “. Merely questioning the state of gender-based inequality in the audio world fails to acknowledge the women who are accomplishing so much and fails to offer real solutions to achieving balance. As we continue this conversation around women in the audio and music industry, we have to do a better job of spotlighting the community of women who are EVERYWHERE and to do everything we can to grow that community today and in the years ahead.”

You Can’t Be What You Can’t See. Women need role models and need to see themselves reflected in all aspects of the industry in order to succeed. Women do not see themselves featured equally, if at all, in the trade magazines, in panels at conferences or in advertisements. Digico ran a fantastic ad campaign called Excellence Exposed, which featured a diverse group of women engineers both in terms of their ethnic backgrounds and musical genres.

Please consider your role in helping our industry achieve equality by representing your entire readership in your advertising and interviewing them for video, blogs, and features. If you need help finding women and other marginalized groups of people, SoundGirls features a monthly Feature Profile of Women in Audio and The EQL Directory A Directory of Women in Professional Audio and Production.

Sincerely,