‘What Difference does it Make? Women's Pop Cultural Production and Consumption in Manchester’

This paper explores the experiences of women in small cultural businesses and isbased upon interviews with women working in a range of contexts in Manchester'spopular music sector. The research seeks to promote wider consideration ofwomen's roles in cultural production and consumption. We argue that it isnecessary that experiences of production and consumption be understood asinter-related processes. Each part of this process is imbued with particulargender characteristics that can serve to reinforce existing patterns andhierarchies. We explore the ways in which female leisure and consumptionpatterns have been marginalised and how this in turn shapes cultural production.This process influences career choices but it is also reinforced through theintegration of consumption into the cultural workplace. Practices oftenassociated with the sector, such as the blurring of work and leisure and‘networking’, appear to be understood and operated in significantly differentways by women. As cultural industries such as popular music are predicated uponthe colonisation of urban space we explore the use of the city and theparticular character of Manchester's music scene. We conclude that, despite theexistence of highly contingent and individualised identities, significant genderpower relations remain evident. These are particularly clear in discussion ofthe performative and sexualised aspects of the job.