Abstract
Despite calls for reform in the allocation of jobs in music industries, little is known about how music organisations operate internally and the day-to-day realities that male and female workers must navigate. Findings of bullying and harassment in the arts sector by the Irish Theatre Institute prompted the Irish government in 2022 to issue a set of recommendations aimed at reforming the working conditions and gender divisions of labour of arts sector organisations under its remit. These recommendations were made in the absence of academic studies of music organisations in Ireland, and in the absence of centralised data about these organisations and the people who work for them. Data gathered in 2024 for the doctoral study, Official Procedure and Lived Reality: Feminist Class Analysis of the Gendering Logic and Paradox of Music Organisations in Ireland, makes visible the realities of music organisations in Ireland; differential access to jobs amongst men and women persists despite the existence of organisational policies, procedures, values, and statements directed by the moral concepts of ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘equality’, intended to ensure ‘equal access’ to jobs. Enduring contradictions between what organisations say they do, and what they do in practice, construct a paradox where men and women are simultaneously ‘equal’ and ‘unequal’, and jobs are allocated without competition, and are more accessible to fathers than mothers. As a consequence, critical questions need to be asked about the logic of these moral concepts, that underpin policies, procedures, values, and statements. Evidence of the compatibility of their logic with a gendering, market logic of neoliberalism (Connell, 2021) is provided by this study. If we are to have policy-informing conversations about access to jobs in music organisations in Ireland, with the view of transforming organisational divisions of labour, these conversations need to pay attention to the logic of these moral concepts and consider if their logic is indeed compatible with the pursuit of social justice.
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Recommended Citation
Kiely, Yvonne Dr
(2026)
"‘It’s the Best Person for the Job’: Gendering Logic and the Hiring Practices of Music Organisations in Ireland,"
Irish Communication Review:
Vol. 20:
Iss.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/icr/vol20/iss1/6