Reba McEntire Says Women 'Work Harder' Than Men in Country Music: 'Just Vying for Attention'

Reba McEntire recently spoke to the Associated Press about the disparity between male and female airplay in country music. According to her, women in country music must "work harder" than men to advance in the genre.

"It might be getting better, but it's not equal yet," McEntire said, regarding how airplay differs between male and female artists at country radio. "We're all always fighting for that. Always vying for that airtime, streaming, radio. Just vying for attention."

She also cited the work that her peers have done in the past and highlighted the work and effort women must make to advance in the country music scene.

"Just the same way that Dolly [Parton], Loretta [Lynn], Tammy [Wynette] and Barbara [Mandrell] did," McEntire said. "We got out there and we found the best songs we possibly could find. If the guys were doing one show, we tried to do three shows. We worked harder. We knew that we had to work harder. We didn't bitch about it. We didn't complain. We just did the work."

On X, formerly Twitter, some users discussed McEntire's remarks.

"Why is 'gender parity' a thing? Don't they just play the stuff that the listeners most want to hear?" one wondered.

"Shouldnt the radio play music people want to hear? If they play it 50-50 based on gender or anything else youre going to end up with a lot of people tuning out and going to other forms of listening entertainment. Honestly this is probably all moot because radio is dead anyway," another asked.

However, some pointed out that the disparity does not happen only in country music but also in pop music.

"Dear Reba McEntire, It isn't just Country Music sweetheart, that's just where it affects you the most," another commented.

"Uhh you ever hear of Taylor Swift? Dua Lipa? I can't go 15 minutes driving wow hearing them both," a user pointed out.

"Taylor Swift dominates the world of music but strangely no one is saying why isn't every male singer paid as much?" one shared.

Rolling Stone reported in 2020 that CMT instituted a 50/50 gender parity for video airplay on both the CMT and CMT Music channels, an increase from the previous 40/60 radio between women and men.

"There are a lot of myths out there -- myths that women don't want to hear women on the radio, [or that] you can't play two women in a row," CMT's Senior Vice President of Music and Talent Leslie Fram said in a statement. "Believe it or not, radio is still king, so we're training people not to hear female voices."

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Reba McEntire