By Jana Ulaite, Head of Brand & Partnerships Marketing, Europe 

TikTok is full of incredible women who have made our platform what it is today. From music artists and comedians, to chefs and entrepreneurs, women are using TikTok every day to entertain, to inspire, to educate and to be voices for change.

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Taking place on 8 March, International Women's Day 2021 has selected #choosetochallenge as its theme - encouraging everyone to choose to call out gender bias and inequality, while also celebrating the achievements of women globally.

We know that there are still so many examples of inequality and gender bias, but we've chosen to direct our efforts on an area very close to our hearts and that of our community. That's why this International Women's Day, we are focusing our #choosetochallenge on the underrepresentation of women in music and raising the voices of women in the industry.

Every day we see female creators using music to bring joy and express themselves - music is a huge part of the TikTok experience. We're a sound-on platform that has been transforming the way fans make, discover and engage with music and artists, helping emerging talent build a fanbase and achieve huge success both on and off TikTok.

While there are so many things to love about the music industry, it's well-known that women are poorly represented. From performance roles through to technical roles, from the business of music through to production, there is not equal opportunity or representation across the entire ecosystem of the music industry. Just 21% of electronic music festival acts are women. Only 1 in 103 orchestra trumpet players are women. As few as 2% of music producers are women.

This is something we want to help change. We've partnered with shesaid.so, a global independent community of women and gender minorities in music, to ​inspire, educate and empower emerging woman-identifying talent. As part of a ongoing programme, we will provide mentoring and a series of educational panel events. The partnership starts on IWD with mentoring panels which will take place on TikTok at [UK 8th March 5.30pm GMT/ France 10th March 4pm CET/ Italy 8th March 5pm CET/ Spain 8th March 8pm CET]. We'll be releasing more information on the partnership over the coming weeks.

We're also celebrating and showcasing the amazing women making music and bringing joy to our community with our #wearehere marketing campaign. It'll see live performances from three of the most inspiring musical talents - Anne-Marie, Cat Burns and Girl in Red - and bring fans curated woman-identifying artist playlists.

From Monday 8th March, you can listen to TikTok's IWD playlist, as well as a whole host of guest playlists, aimed at highlighting the women artists who created some of the biggest viral moments on TikTok. Tune in to #WeAreHere playlists from some of your favourite artists, including Little Mix, Ashnikko, Ms Banks, Nina Nesbitt, Shania Twain, and Christine and The Queens.

How to get involved

There are loads of different ways to get involved and join us in celebrating the women bringing diversity and creativity to music:

Join live performances from woman-identifying music stars

Tune in to the panel discussions via TikTok's account and the shesaid.so TikTok account.

  • Catch the mentor moments discussions via the shesaid.so TikTok Account
  • Create your own TikTok video and be sure to add the #Wearehere hashtag to your description.
  • See tips from women of the music industry from shesaid.so all month, from IWD


    • Keen to take part in International Women's Day 2021 on TikTok? Getting involved is simple - download the app now for free via the Apple App Store, Google Play or Amazon.