Women who work in male-dominated fields always have a few challenges thrown at them, and female musicians definitely know this to be true. While becoming successful in the performing arts is difficult for anyone who chooses to pursue a career in them, women have a few more mountains to climb ahead of them. When I began writing this article, I actually didn’t know how to begin. Being a female musician didn’t seem all that hard when I thought about it. But as I started to write, more and more challenges started occurring to me and here, I’m pretty shocked that female musicians contend with this stuff daily. Here is a list of challenges that female musicians face. Perhaps we can work to make a change?

1. People will automatically assume you’re the singer.

This is, of course, annoying to the female instrumentalist. I went to a music college that was 70 percent male, and while male students were asked, “What instrument are you here for?” girls were asked, “So you’re here for voice, right?” Once you answered “no,” the subsequent guesses usually started with “piano,” “acoustic guitar,” “flute,” “violin” and so on. Instruments like drums or bass would be quite far down the list. On the other hand, even when you actually are the singer, it is still somewhat offensive when people assume you’re the singer. Not because singing is an easy task, because it most certainly isn’t. It’s the fact that the connotation is never, “Great, you’re the singer!” The connotation is “you’re just the singer.” Like you can’t possibly be capable of doing anything else: playing instruments, leading the band or making business decisions. Which is totally unfair, and in most cases, completely untrue.

2. If you are an instrumentalist, you’ll be hearing a lot of “you’re good for a girl!”

Like in any male-dominated field, your successes are often going to be measured in how good you are “for a girl.” You play drums? You’re good for a girl. You played an awesome guitar solo? Well, it was good for a girl. You work as an audio engineer? I mean, it’s good for a girl. Even when people mean it as a genuine compliment, it’s rather degrading. Why can’t we just be good, in general? And the thing is, people don’t even have to say it half the time. We can tell by the way they say it that they mean it’s “good for a girl.” When I started out playing music, it was my goal to be the girl who surprised you by being a bassist, who listened to Led Zeppelin, who could hold her own with the boys. That got old really fast. It’s pretty exhausting to constantly be looked at as “the girl,” even the “the really good girl,” after putting in all the hours and effort to become a good musician.

3. People will assume you’re trying to be Taylor Swift.

This is especially true if you’re a female singer-songwriter. When you walk into the room toting an acoustic guitar or a keyboard, it is almost automatically assumed that you’re going to be playing country, pop, or some blend of the two in the vein of artists like (old) Taylor Swift. It is assumed that you’re just another “girl singer,” who writes breakup songs and only has a rudimentary knowledge of your instrument. Of course, it doesn’t help that many female musicians actually perpetuate this notion (Grace Potter recently said she only learned how to play electric guitar so people wouldn’t think she was another “girl singer" who plays piano, as if being a girl singer who plays piano is such a bad thing). Sometimes it is a pleasant surprise to your audience when you pull out a classic rock song, a jazz standard or even a songwriter-style song that is more in line with Carole King. But it can also be a major letdown to other people, who expected you to sound like Taylor Swift. Worse yet are the people who approach you and tell you to be more like the stereotypical female singer-songwriter they expected you to be, because you’ll have a better shot with that than with the style of music you actually want to play.

4. On the flip-side, people will assume you’re trying to be like Joan Jett.

So if you’re not a stereotypical girl singer-songwriter, the next automatic assumption is that you’re going to be the stereotypical rocker chick...which is probably also not true. The music industry has skewed things so far to the outskirts of what being a female musician can be, that most people think the only two options are “Pop Star” or “Rocker Chick,” even though there are a thousand other options in between. Unfortunately, this leads a lot of female musicians who don’t fit the pop star mold to dressing more hardcore, whether or not it fits their style of music or their brand, just to set themselves apart from the mainstream.

5. You’ll feel like you need to work harder than everyone else in order to be taken seriously.

When you’re a female musician, you can’t just be good at playing music. You need to be a good songwriter, a good graphic artist, a good PR person, a good manager, a good engineer. Why? Because if you’re simply a good musician, you’re not good enough. I think this is the case in many industries. Women always feel like they have to be doing everything, that they have to be a Jill-of-all-trades, in order for people to give them respect. Whereas a male musician can be given respect just for being awesome at music, a female musician has to work that much harder to prove herself in all areas of the business.

6. People will think the only songs you can write are breakup songs or love songs.

This one runs deep, because music is not the only place where people are surprised to find out women actually have opinions about things other than relationships. You wrote a political song? Wow! You wrote a song about society? No way! Who knew women had anything going on in their pretty little heads besides romance! Now this isn’t to diminish women who actually write about breakups and love; I mean, what songwriter male or female hasn’t penned a few of these songs in the heat of emotion? It’s just the concept that women can only write these kind of songs, to the exception of everything else, that is disheartening.

7. Prepare yourself for a lot of unwanted advances.

Male musicians experience this too, but when you’re a female, you’re not simply dealing with the stereotypical “groupies.” (Which is, of course, another sexist concept in and of itself). When you’re a female musician, you’re also going to have to develop some serious escape artist skills, because there will rarely be a gig where you don’t receive some kind of unwanted sexual advance from a guy. Even the most benign advances, the “can-I-buy-you-a-drink” advances, get trying. Yeah, because as I stand here packing up my 200 pound PA system after playing my heart out for three hours, I really want to sit down and have a drink with you. How about you offer me some help with these speakers that weigh more than I do, or if you’re so intent on spending money, put it in my tip jar? Not to mention the actually threatening advances, the men who are way bigger than you and too drunk to recognize that they’re crossing the line. When you’re a female musician, you’re rarely traveling to gigs alone. The sound guy and the bartender are your best friends, your bodyguards, the ones who on the most basic end rescue you from being hit on and on the extreme end need to walk you to your car to make sure you get there safely. Something tells me this isn’t a problem many male musicians need to contend with.

8. There is a significant lack of community for female musicians.

Considering the amount of unique challenges women face in the music industry, there is surprisingly (and unsurprisingly) a pretty big lack of community for female musicians. I wrote about the idea of “mean girls,” and how females tend to put each other down rather than support each other in successes, and the music industry is certainly no exception to that. It is incredibly difficult to make it in the music industry regardless of gender, so it is unlikely that you’re going to go out of your way to ensure that someone else is successful over yourself. It’s a competitive dog-eat-dog business, and women will run the gamut from simply being aloof towards other female musicians, to women who sabotage each other to get ahead. While there are plenty of awesome, supportive female musicians out there, there are also a lot of actual cutthroats, which makes it hard to trust anyone completely.

9. You’ll be judged on your looks, often more than on your actual musicianship.

Ever notice that most of our superstar female musicians are under 25, and fit traditional beauty standards? Unfortunately, women in pretty much all walks of life are subject to being judged on their looks, and there is no industry where this is more true than the entertainment biz. Not only will your success depend upon your looks, but also on how willing you’ll be to alter your looks, in order to appeal to a certain audience. How much skin are you willing to show? What kind of clothes are you willing to wear? Would you consider plastic surgery? While a lot of this might seem like an issue that only affects people signed to major labels, it exists on the local music scene too. Many female musicians feel pressured to compromise their own comfort levels in order to look a certain way, or at the very least stop being true to themselves, in hopes of getting ahead.

10. You’ll be given a lot of advice, usually unwanted, from people who think they know better.

A lot of people, usually older male musicians, are going to constantly be giving you advice whether you asked for it or not. You should sing higher because girls sing high (what, Annie Lenox? Forget about her!), you shouldn’t sit behind the piano because it hides you, maybe if you dyed your hair people would take you more seriously, you should play more Joni Mitchell covers because isn’t that what girl singer-songwriters do? (By the way, that’s all actual advice I’ve been given). Sometimes it’s because they’re a bit egotistical, and sometimes it might be coming from a genuine place of wanting to be helpful. Either way, it usually comes off like they’re trying to tell you what to do because they’re a man, they’ve been in the business longer, and they know better than you. Because there’s no way you could figure things out for yourself. You’re just a girl.

11. But not everyone is out to get you.

OK, this one isn't really a challenge so much as trying to end on a positive note. This article has definitely pointed out the worst of the worst, and by no means applies to everyone. When I was a teenager, I used to think that if I ever got to be in a band, it would be because they wanted the token girl, or the “eye-candy,” and nothing more. What I’ve found is that there are a lot of really amazing, supportive musicians, male and female, who not only think you’re a good musician, but actually want to play with you because of it. There are a lot of producers, managers, and venue owners who want to work with you, not because you’re a girl but because you’re good at what you do. So while the battle for equality is not over, it’s certainly not lost either.