Female Vocalist is not a Musical Genre

Last.fm new instant playlist feature  functions something like iTune's genius or Google's instant music mix matching songs with similar songs, and it's been keeping me occupied the last few days.

Granted, these playlists can't be played, or even imported into iTunes, but it's fun seeing otherwise disparate songs paired with each other. ("The Ledge" by the Replacements really sounds like Kanye West's "Power?" Really? Er, okay, I guess since they both talk of jumping out windows...) My issue is a long-standing one that has nothing to do with Last.fm as a service and everything to do with its system of communal "tagging."

I can only guess at the algorithm that pairs like with like, but hovering over certain songs provides an obvious clue that tagging is, at least, a part of it. For example: Cat Power's "Lost Someone" is similar to Kate Nash's "Kiss That Grrrl" because both are tagged "female vocalist." By itself, this is not a terrible thing. I've probably played both in tandem anyway, but as far as I can tell there is no "male vocalist" tag, or at least one that's not used frequently enough to merit discussion. Music made by men, sung by men, is almost always labeled by genre: rock, folk, hip-hop, etc. Music made by women, irrespective of genre, is tagged "female vocalist." It does a disservice to an artist who is often a writer, producer, and musician in addition to being a vocalist  when she's pegged primarily as a "woman; singing."

The focus on women as singers has a lot to do with the lack of representation in other facets of music. Women have long dominated pop music -- where historically, they've had little control over their own image -- singing songs usually written and produced by men. This lack of representation also rears its head whenever a music magazine or websites publishes a best-of or top whatever list. But even more troubling is that women are seen as "other" even in something as culturally insignificant as pop music.