Creativity and constraint: Gendered work experiences in the Belgian popular music mainstream

Abstract Centring the voices of music professionals who labour offstage, including managers, live sound technicians, and festival organisers, this article critically examines gendered labour in the music industry, focussing on Belgium in the 2020s. This investigation of how intersectional gendered expectations are negotiated in musical workplaces identifies mechanisms of alienation, delegitimisation, and the sexualisation of labour that constrain professional agency. At the same time, the study finds resonances between the ways participants engage with mentorship and existing literature on such programmes, notably as professionals seek role models, navigate pay disparities, and plan improvements to training. The article theorises the function of mentorship as strategic response to structural precarity. By positioning human-scale festivals as pedagogical spaces, the study explores how underrepresented labourers navigate these environments in response to inequity. This research contributes to a qualitative understanding of how intersectional gendered workplace dynamics are experienced, contested, and reshaped in contemporary European music markets.