Of the 62 record stores in Washington (according to Discogs’ Indie Record Store Directory), only six are owned by women, and none of those six are in Seattle. “It can be a very hard world to enter,” Rachel Gardner, the owner of the Edmonds record shop Musicology tells me, while lounging on a leopard-print couch amidst hundreds of LPs. “It’s challenging to even get an invitation.”  I was invited to the world of record collecting when I was 13, while pet-sitting for a neighbor with a free-roaming iguana and a large record collection. Each day, I would feed the lizard his salad mix, then flip through the shelves of LPs. One day, with a copy of Ramones’ Road to Ruin chosen from the shelf, I nervously called up my neighbor to ask her how to play it. She warmly and encouragingly walked me through it: turn on the receiver and press “phono.” Turn on the record player. Carefully move the needle to the outer groove. Lower the arm carefully. A few months later, I asked for a turntable for my 14th birthday and spent the next four years of babysitting money on building a record collection of my own.  As I entered college, I naively daydreamed about starting my own record store, or even just selling records out of the trunk of my Volkswagen Jetta (a lack of money, experience, and social skills would prove this to be difficult). So, when a female employee at my local record store asked if I was looking for a job, I jumped on it quickly. I was first hired at a record store when I was 19, and I continued to work in record stores for most of my 20s. I was oftentimes the only woman on staff and the youngest employee, which exposed me to many flavors of misogyny. “Aw, are you here with your dad?” a man once asked, while I was restocking the bins on Record Store Day. “That’s a sexy little outfit you’ve got on,” another man grumbled to me on a hot day in August. You’d be surprised how many times I’d ask a man, “Would you like a bag?” only to hear the retort, “No, I’ve got an old bag at home!” It was usually my job to do what the men I worked with didn’t want to do: clean the store, pick up my boss’s lunch, and peel off old price tags until my nails were broken and my polish chipped off. It was my dream to work at a record store, yet I so infrequently did anything with records themselves. My boyfriend, who did not work at the store, was invited to help with record buys and record shows before I was ever considered. I did not understand why no one trusted my knowledge. Like my nail polish, my self-esteem was chipped away until I didn’t even trust myself. For Rachel Gardner, her invitation into the world of music and record collecting was simply her entrance into the world: she was literally born in the back of her parents’ Port Townsend music store. And, with a jazz musician father and grandfather, her childhood continued to be steeped in music. “I remember playing with my Barbies under jazz club tables at 2 a.m.,” she recalls. Although her 20s were spent rejecting the family business and pursuing a life as a pro skier, Gardner always knew that she wanted to have a little shop of her own, selling either records or sporting equipment. “Since I am pretty removed from the action-sports world these days—my knees don’t do that anymore [laughs]—I decided to stick to records.” Musicology is located on 5th Avenue in Edmonds, offering used LPs, CDs, and cassette tapes, alongside a handful of new inventory and music-related gifts. It’s the type of record store with a small but ever-changing inventory intentionally curated to surprise you with deals. Gardner explains, “We know what we’re doing; we have a very specific pricing strategy.” Musicology aims to price items below online sales medians to keep products moving and customers happy. “Although,” she sighs, “we get collectors that say, ‘This is worth more!’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know that, lucky you.’ They think that they’re taking one over on the girl. They don’t realize that it’s all intentional.” Misogyny is an intricate web entangled in every aspect of record collecting, stretching from customers distrusting female record store employees, to employees undervaluing female customers, to vinyl buyers making assumptions about female sellers and sellers distrusting female vinyl buyers. It’s not always overtly sexist comments, but a refusal to accept that a woman in a record store might know exactly what she’s doing. “I think it’s an inherent bias that people don’t realize that they have,” says Gardner. “We all have biases and gender is just one of them.” Even in her own store, Gardner’s experiences of condescending comments and distrust are eerily similar to my own. “If I’m working with a male employee, the customer will always go to him,” she explains. “Actually, just a couple of days ago, a customer said, ‘Oh, so you must be the wife.’” When I ask how that made her feel, she shrugs, looking unfazed. “Well, it’s the third time that’s happened this month.” Gardner tells me that her approach to these situations is either “kindness” or to simply dissociate from it all. “Sometimes I just go to this special space where everything goes blank.”  Gardner has made a conscious effort to hire and train women at Musicology, including shop manager CJ Migas, who quietly priced records at the counter during our interview. “Some people will mistrust her ability to grade vinyl, which I find funny, because I hire people who pay very close attention to details,” Gardner says. “Yes, it is a job that requires a lot of knowledge, but it’s something that anyone can learn and get better at.” This is a refreshing and surprisingly rare attitude to have in this business. This effort to invite women into the world of record collecting doesn’t stop with Gardner’s immediate community—she’s on the executive board for Women in Vinyl, a nonprofit raising funds to support women and all minorities in the industry through scholarships, mentorships, job boards, business development, and workshops. “It’s been inspirational and also helpful,” she says. “I feel like it’s my conduit of putting positive energy out there.” However, she continues to struggle with the question of whether to lean into being a women-owned business or not. “It doesn’t seem to be a great marketing tool,” she says with a laugh. Despite Musicology’s presence in Edmonds’s community, the team has also struggled to enter the larger Seattle record-collecting circle. “I reach out all the time about participating in some of the big record shows, but I often get shut down,” says Gardner. “Or, I’ll go to other shops and be like, ‘I want to be your friend,’ to which I’ve been shot down, completely ignored, or even talked trash about.” Gardner explains that when she feels down about herself, she revisits what she wrote down when she first opened the shop: “This is about community. This is about being a third space.” Musicology prioritizes community by hosting monthly all-ages open mic nights, as well as regular in-store performances and album listening parties. “Recently I looked at numbers and thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Then, a mom came in and said to me, ‘I just wanted to let you know, this is the only place my kid will leave the house for.’ Then I remembered, ‘Oh, this is why, to keep that invitation open.’”  The post Invite Only appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less