Rachelle Rosegold: Dismantling Gender Inequality in the Audio & Sound World

Artful Thought

This is episode #7 of Artful Thought, recorded live at the University of San Francisco's KUSF studio, which aired on Saturday, May 25th, 2019. My guest is California native, Rachelle Rosegold, who is a savant and lover of various audio-sound realms, where her mission is “Combining communication with innovative audio to create social change.” We chat about Rachelle’s upbringing in a family of musicians, starting out in L.A. with her 3 sisters in a Pop Quartet, leading up to her journey as a vocalist, songwriter, podcast producer, sound engineer, Foley Artist, and DJ among other roles that she plays.

Rachelle has tread a great deal in experimental sound projects, where she says she has “seen the power of sound and audio in people’s eyes and how transformative it can be.” She takes us through the many areas of the sound and audio, including live, audio production, new audio/digital workspaces (including at-home production), and mixing and mastering as the final step of audio production.

As women whose paths crossed in the audio world, we shift to delving heavily into the questions and answers as to why on earth women only make up 5% of the professional audio world, and how the community as a whole needs to dismantle biased perceptions about gender through education, dialogue, and a shared goal of equal opportunity. We approach the issues of female identity and the gender gap in workspaces from a personal and global perspective. The root of the problem begins with ingrained undertones of a societal gendering of values— which in stark contrast to men, values women for how they look rather than what they do. Rachelle points out “We’re not even aware of the stigmas that are projected onto us” when reviewing statistics and commentary from an academic journal. Through a combination of our researched sources and personal frustrations with gender inequality, the message iterated is a need to dismantle certain perceptions about gender before gendered power structures can truly shift.

Also, make sure to tune into Rachelle's KUSF show, http://www.kusf.org/shows/levels-and-luster">Levels and Luster on Fridays 1:30-3pm PST, and check out her 2018 Shttps://open.spotify.com/album/0zwxhtCxCitVx7PZ6dIvVV">elf-Titled EP.

For more info on how to help dismantle the audio world's gender disparity, please reference...

• https://www.womensaudiomission.org">Women's Audio Mission
• https://soundgirls.org">Sound Girls
• The Atlantic's https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/08/why-arent-there-more-women-working-in-audio/537663/">"What Aren't There More Women Working in Audio?"

Mega thanks to Rachelle for waking up this early on a holiday weekend and dishing out her wisdoms and kindred artsy juju to myself and the sea of radio wave dwellers!

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