All eyes are on the Grammys tonight as they attempt to correct last year's oversights in the recognition of women. In an early win, a woman made history in the technical categories when Emily Lazar became the first woman mastering engineer ever to take home the Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical) Grammy for her work on Beck's Colors.
"I am so grateful to get to be one of the people...that young women see and they can say, 'I can see it. I can be it. That's cool career, I want to go do that,'" Lazar said in her acceptance speech in the Grammys Awards Premiere Ceremony, which is streamed live on their website before the main show.
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Lazar is one of an incredibly small pool of women mastering engineers, among the eqally small pool (a mere 3%) of women who are engineers.
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released their latest study ahead of the Grammys again this year, with a focus on the problems women face in the recording studio. In production jobs, from engineering to producing to songwriting, 43% of responders said that being taken seriously was a barrier of entry, especially paired with reports of sexual harassment and additional challenges to their vision.
Now that the Recording Academy voters have shown that they take Lazar seriously by awarding her a Grammy, let's hope it opens the door for a lot more to come through.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Emily Lazar is the first woman mastering engineer to accept this Grammy.