Being a Woman in Performing Arts: an Interview with Sadie Leigh Gustafson - Kyla Kidorf

Many little girls dream of becoming pop stars. Selling out stadiums, having millions of fans, spending each night in a new city. Most don’t do it, but what of the ones that do? 

Women in general face a plethora of microaggressions in everyday life, especially in the workplace. From female doctors to female producers, gender stereotypes are unfortunately a common experience in most workplaces. But when it comes to performing arts, it’s more than that. It isn’t just judgy coworkers or

Source: Sadie Leigh Gustafson- Spotify

discriminatory bosses- on top of that, being in the public eye subjects the performer to infinitely more criticism. However for women, there are disproportionately more of these critiques. 

“Being a woman in the industry is like going through an obstacle course, and people are beating you down and there are things swinging in front of you, and you’re dodging it, and if you make it out to the end it’s like, ‘Well you did it, but at what cost?’” says Sadie Leigh Gustafson. 

Sadie Leigh Gustafson is a Pennsylvania-based singer-songwriter; and similar to many other women in the music industry, she has faced more than her fair share of prejudices in getting to where she is today.

When it comes to women in the music industry, Gustafson says, “You can be okay as a man and you can get by; and I feel like this applies to all fields, women have to be exceptional to even get a second glance.” We see this often though, for example Taylor Swift, whose record-breaking Eras Tour has surpassed $1 billion in revenue, becoming the highest-grossing music tour in history. However, many people still criticize her song writing for being too “superfluous” and too focused on relationships, breakups, and men.

Gustafson credits this scrutiny to the double standards between men and women, saying, “If we do write about superfluous topics we’re seen as shallow, but if we try to speak our mind, it’s like ‘who is this nobody and why does she think she can comment on the political status of the world, or something serious?”

In addition to the content of their lyrics, the way they perform, dress, and present themselves as a whole is a common topic of criticism on female performers. For example, Billie Eillish faced backlash when going through a change in style for wearing more “form fitting” and “feminine” clothing; and artists like Mitski have faced hate for performing their music in a notoriously interpretive and unique way, with people saying her performance “traumatized” them, and others calling her “scary.”

“If I wanted to walk out on stage in a bra and a short skirt, if that's what I felt comfortable in, then so be it, as long as you're comfortable. But sometimes I want to wear a baggy tee shirt and baggy jeans. So I feel like it really depends on what you’re comfortable in.” Gustafson says, highlighting the importance of performing for yourself, “I dislike the things I write when I write with people other than myself in mind, usually I just write to express myself.”

And while it can seem discouraging to see so many women in the public eye be relentlessly criticized for every facet of their life, so many female performers, producers, and women in other fields continue to strive to break down these barriers every day. “Women always had to be beautiful, if you’re not beautiful then what are you? So the people that aren’t really caught up in what they look like and they're more into the music, those are the kind of people I like. The people I look up to are people that are beautiful in many ways, but they're especially beautiful because they’re true to themselves.” concludes Gustafson.