Women in Latin music

Women have made significant contributions to Latin music, a genre which predates Italian explorer Christopher Columbus' arrival in Latin America in 1492 and the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The earliest musicians were Native Americans, hundreds of ethnic groups across the continent, whose lyrics "reflect conflict, beauty, pain, and loss that mark all human experience." Indigenous communities reserved music for women, who were given equal opportunities with men to teach, perform, sing, and dance. Ethnomusicologists have measured ceramic, animal-bone, and cane flutes from the Inca Empire which indicate a preference for women with a high vocal range. Women had equal social status, were trained, and received the same opportunities in music as men in indigenous communities until the arrival of Columbus in the late 15th century. European settlers brought patriarchal, machismo ideologies to the continent, replacing the idea of equality between men and women. They equated native music with "savagery" and European music with "civilization". Female musicians tended to be darker-skinned as a result of the slave trade (which increased the population of African slaves), and contemporary society denigrated music as a profession. Latin music became Africanized, with syncopated rhythms and call-and-response; European settlement introduced harmony and the Spanish décima song form.

Since the pre-recording era of music, Latin music was male-dominated, and there are relatively few examples of female songwriters, music producers, record executives, and promoters. Women lacked access to musical training; music programs were nonexistent, and cultural norms discouraged female participation. Latin music had a primarily male presence; men discriminated against women, limiting them to singing or dancing and discouraging them from becoming instrumentalists, writers, composers, arrangers, and executives. Women artists in the sub-genres of Latin music, such as Selena, Jenni Rivera, Jennifer Lopez, Ivy Queen, Julieta Venegas, and Ely Guerra have been credited with enhancing the genres' female presence; they have broken through barriers, reshaping Latin music and public perceptions of female sexuality, gender, and femininity. ^[1] Chilean folklorist Violeta Parra recorded songs about failed heterosexual relationships, emphasizing men's incapability to commit to a woman. Women in salsa music are significantly underrepresented in the industry as very few women, with the exception of Celia Cruz, have been associated with the emergence of the genre; for example, in the British documentary Salsa: Latin Pop Music in the Cites (1985), Cruz is one of the only female singers who is mentioned.

Women Latin singers have a significant demographic imbalance on Billboard music charts compared with their male counterparts. As radio formats explore genres popularized and led by men, such as reggaeton and regional Mexican, women on the Billboard Latin music charts are periodically absent. The last female singer with a number-one single was Sofia Reyes, whose collaborative "Solo Yo" ended a five-year drought on the Latin Pop Songs chart in 2016. A year earlier, on the 50-position Hot Latin Songs chart, 22 weeks passed without a song by a woman. Reyes has expressed concern about the disparity between male and female performances at Latin music award shows, noting that 90 percent of the performers are male. Other female singers, such as Chiquis Rivera, have attributed the decline in the visibility of women in Latin music to sexist radio programmers. Latin music executive Alexandra Lioutikoff believes that the decline is due to a lack of female collaboration. Latin music remains male-dominated, and the music industry has "prejudiced practice" limiting female recording artists. On March 5, 2023, Karol G became the first woman to debut and peak atop the Billboard 200 albums chart with an all-Spanish album Mañana Será Bonito.^[2]