By the turn of the millennium, disco had turned geriatric and given way to the newest genre on the dance music block, electronica. A French duo named Daft Punk were getting lucky on the electronic music scene, along with Fat Boy Slim and the Chemical (née-Dust) Brothers. After a summer of debauchery in Ibiza, London DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold decided to bring the beats to illegal warehouse parties in England. It was official, electronic dance music was now a global phenomenon.

With this wave, for the most part, women felt their presence more on the dance floor than in the booth. Those who were able to break the glass ceiling were categorically labelled ‘sex kittens’ (cleavage bearing), ‘t-shirt DJs’ (self explanatory) or ‘dykes’ (short hair cuts, and not the Victoria Beckham pixie kind). In an era of DJ commoditization, women were not in complete control of negotiating their stage personas. These were often shaped by forces within, above and beyond the dance music world. She-jays had to grapple with what feminists call the ‘male gaze’, particularly with regard to their physicality, something which completely evaded their male counterparts. “Men can be the ugliest gits on the planet and be embraced as amazing DJ’s, but women will receive comments about their looks”, says DJ and producer, Lottie.

However, as resourceful women do, many female DJs have been able to appropriate the male gaze for the sake of their music. The argument goes; flaunt it, but keep it classy and make the music matter. “In all honesty being attractive helps”, says DJ and producer, Sophie Lloyd. “A lot of the time I’ve been booked for being female which has worked in my favour, but you have to back it up . . . to show that you’re not just attractive and female but that you are actually good at what you do.” 

Alternatively, if not to capitalize on it, women DJ’s have chosen to make their gender identities a non-issue. “Generally, we’re treated the same and most of the time it feels like we’re one of the boys, which is cool with us”, quip the Australian Nervo twins. More recently, branding by labels and producers has emphasized the style rather than the identity of the artists. Perhaps with the exception of deadmau5, who quite literally merchandises himself as a dead mouse.

Though the dance music world has been overwhelmingly male, this remains a moot point as the genre is far from being male-centric. For that matter, it is far from being anyone-centric, given it loves and is loved for its diversity. The Dutch and Swedish artists rule the charts, but it’s the American producers in the studio. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you come from – consider the anonymity of some rave DJ’s, who perform offstage and only surface for the applause at the end of their sets. My favourite example of the mobility in EDM is the Madeon-esque ‘I’m French, I make music’ technique, which launched him from SoundCloud to Ultra in a year. So it is inevitable that women are welcomed and respected in a space where their music speaks volumes louder than their identities.

When it comes to making music, it’s not different for girls; rather, girls do it differently. According to Lottie, “girls love music, but they’re just not nerds.” In my view, women’s approach to production is more about craft through lyrics and melody. Girl power in EDM lies with the vocalists – Nadia Ali, Bright Lights, anyone on an Adrian Lux track. They say that boys don’t listen to lyrics and girls do, and it’s the girls who get the girls listening. “We definitely appreciate good lyrics and are involved in that part of our music making”, say Nervo. Confession: duped by his choice of vocals and slow burning melodies, I was under the impression for the longest time that Kaskade was a woman.

Another trend among female DJs is that they rise in duo’s. Resistance to male predominance or not, it works. “We have to acknowledge all the time that it’s a very male-dominated business . . . but we have each other, so we make all of the decisions ourselves. Nobody can tell us what kind of music we should make or play”, says Fiona Fitzpatrick, of Swedish duo Rebecca & Fiona, who met at a party and called it love at first sight. And like some brothers (Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike), they keep it in the family. Take spin-sters, or sisters who spin, Miriam and Olivia Nervo, or my latest favourite, Krewella, a one-man-two-half-Pakistani-sisters trio, who are ballsy enough to incorporate live vocals into their sets.

As for some of my favourite niche female artists, there’s Lindsay Luv, the queen of Victoria’s Secret Radio Mixes, or Mumbai-based female duo, The Electroverts. To find out about more female DJs owning the EDM scene, check out shejay.net, an e-zine dubbed as the mother of “all things female in electronic and dance music” that has exploded into an event, tour and DJ agency.

Lastly, the industry is so nascent that there isn’t any space for discrimination. Everyone sticks up for each other rather than sticking it to each other. “While our real estate has changed, we’ve been lurking and making back alley pushes to help music as a whole for ages”, blogs Kaskade, or #askade. “For so many years, we’ve been a bastard child of the business, and finally, now everybody wants a dance record”, says Grammy winning producer David Morales, in David Guetta’s biopic of sorts, Nothing But The Beat. (In its defense, EDM is more likely the love child of house and electro.) So though its rise has been meteoric, EDM artists and EDMers alike remember their roots, support and mentor each other (Hardwell calls Tiësto his ‘big brother’), and give credit where credit is due.

And that’s the beauty of it. Though artists may have the occasional tweet war, with all the elements that go into creating a single track, electronic dance music is, by default, collaborative. And in most cases, by choice – it’s no coincidence every second track has a ‘feat.’ in its title or an ampersand between the artists’ names. Ultimately, talent transcends all boundaries in a world where it’s only about the music, in a world which lets you be anything you want to be.