With what looks to be a revival of the clubbing scene in London, burgeoning hubs across Europe, such as Berlin and Amsterdam, and the growing appetite for festivals and unique venues from North Africa to South America, it seems there should be ever more opportunities for electronic music artists to enter the industry. So why is it so many lineups remain male-dominated?

“As far as we know it is the first time that the ending to Carmen has been changed,” the opera house’s Paolo Klun told The Telegraph. “We think it’s important that the theatre should not be a conservative place of musical culture, it should not be a museum. It’s a place where debate can be initiated. Carmen was written 150 years ago in a very different cultural context. Times change.”

“Whilst we would rather have no incidents at all, I can tell you that with that particular one the woman involved, the person involved, and her friend actually apprehended the male and then handed them to security, who then handed them to police to be investigated,” said Tasmania police Senior Sgt. Darren Latham. “So it is encouraging that people are taking positive action, but we would of course wish that this didn’t happen at all.”

Pop culture has a history of pitting women against one another, but this year, faux feuds were rejected, and these chart-topping artists rallied their support for one another.

"You'd be hard pressed to find a woman working in the industry today who's never been a victim of sexual harassment or abuse," says Yasmin Lajoie, a 29-year-old music manager. Frustrated by the abuse that she had seen and experienced in the industry, she started collecting others' stories of sexual misconduct. "I expected stories of sexual harassment… but what I've actually received are stories of rape happening on company property, men insisting on oral sex from young women, men seriously assaulting women, raping them in apartments owned by major music companies."

As allegations of sexual misconduct continue to rock the entertainment industry, lawyers predict there could be one unintended consequence: less opportunities for women in music. "I think people are going to think twice about hiring women and promoting women is going to be a big issue now," says attorney Dina LaPolt, head of LaPolt Law. "If you have two people for the job -- this guy or this woman -- I just think the men are going to get more opportunities."

"We all have our own stories, or know someone who does," it reads. "We are not whingers or vibe-killers. We are passionate people dedicating our lives to music. In the face of uncountable discrimination, harassment, violence, and the general menace of sexist jargon, we have gritted our teeth and gotten on with the job. But today we say, no more."

“There are still no big female icons,” she says. “There are no women up there on a par with Vicente Amigo, for example. We keep struggling to pave the way.” Bit by bit, without too much noise, they are blazing the trail. There aren’t many of them and carving out their careers has been a lonely business. But finally, they are becoming more visible – a handful of role models for the next generation.

Possibly for the first time, festival presenters could no longer get away with booking one or two female musicians next to a heap of men. “The awareness of it not being equitable for men and women in jazz has really come to a bit of a head,” said Terri Lyne Carrington, 52, an esteemed drummer who has long spoken out about sexism in the music industry. “As far as it resulting in more female instrumentalists becoming recognized — whether it’s albums or festivals or gigs — that’s steadily getting better.”

"It really hit us that there wasn’t rigorous data on the business itself," says Smith, whose team is interviewing dozens of executives while analyzing charts, song lyrics and music videos "in order to really understand and counter implicit and explicit bias," she says, aiming to release the initial findings in early 2018. Smith says that she hopes to create "targeted solutions" for both the live and recorded music sectors, such as encouraging music companies to put language into their employment contracts that incentivizes the promotion and retention of women and minorities in bigger roles. It’s an idea that borrows from Smith’s years of research on the film industry, in which "all an A-list financier has to stipulate [before funding a movie] are inclusion criteria," says Smith.

This month, while the nation's attention turned to the challenges women face in all kinds of workplaces, musicians and mentors once again gathered in Dallas to start solving one particular problem. For all the progress women have made professionally over the decades, they remain rarities in two high-profile positions: as conductors of symphony orchestras and opera companies. Among major American orchestras, only two have female music director

US hip hop artist Nelly and Algerian singer Cheb Khaled are scheduled to perform a concert in Jeddah on 14 December. But the event is open to men only and although the response has been overwhelmingly positive, some women in the country are angry.