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After years of fighting for a seat at the table<\/a>, women are finally on top in country music. Artists like Megan Moroney, Miranda Lambert and Ella Langley<\/a> lead nominations at the Academy of Country Music Awards<\/a>, and Langley just became the first female country singer ever<\/em> to hold the top two spots on the Hot 100 <\/a>at the same time.<\/p>\n Shania Twain revolutionized the music industry with her genre-bending hits throughout the 1990s and 2000s. There\u2019s no denying she\u2019s the blueprint for so many artists \u2014 male and female, country and pop. She knows a thing or two about how difficult it is to challenge the norms of the tradition-obsessed country music machine, though that didn\u2019t stop her from becoming the top-selling female country-pop artist of all time. As the host of this year\u2019s ACM Awards,<\/a> to be held on Saturday in Las Vegas, she\u2019s aware that women have had to claw their way to the forefront of the industry.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s more \u2026 awareness that we need more balance,\u201d Twain tells Yahoo. \u201cDiversity is stronger among the women right now. They\u2019re so different from one another \u2014 they are presenting originality and that is demanding space.\u201d<\/p>\n Country music has long been defined by its distinctly Southern sounds and themes<\/a>. Banjo-plucking, guitar-strumming, accent-heavy songs about family, drinking, boots and trucks are both a stereotype and a reality. The industry hasn\u2019t always been open to experimentation. Breakout stars, like Twain, often have to transcend the genre entirely to create an image and a musical catalog that can\u2019t be denied by the bigwigs in country radio<\/a>, who remain powerful gatekeepers even in the age of streaming. Twain had to defy them in the \u201890s.<\/p>\n Even after she made it big, purists criticized her<\/a> for leaning too far into rock and pop. She says that when she first started performing at age 8, the genre was more accepting of different people and sounds \u2014 folk rock, dance country, country western and Southwest music could coexist.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a little bit of everything,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to see us go back to where we were in our open-mindedness. There were more doors open then to variety and [style]. Let\u2019s go there again and let\u2019s open it up.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just her crossover sound that the industry was resistant to. She was told she was too opinionated <\/a>to attract male fans and too sexually expressive<\/a> for women. Her music video for \u201cWhat Made You Say That\u201d<\/a> \u2014 where she bared her midriff and got cozy with a shirtless hunk \u2014 was banned from CMT<\/a>, but that\u2019s the image that would go on to make her a star. She was sexy, funny, outspoken and hard to categorize all at once.\u00a0 “Nashville hadn’t seen anything like Twain [before] \u2014 a leopard-print-loving, midriff-exposing artist determined to be an international star,\u201d the Independent\u2019s Roisin O\u2019Connor has written of Twain<\/a>.<\/p>\n Twain\u2019s willingness to rebel against\u00a0 the country machine, particularly her 1995 album, The Woman in Me,<\/em> ended up changing it for good<\/a>. <\/em>Taylor Swift<\/a> credits Twain for inspiring her country crossover. Carrie Underwood<\/a> says she \u201cpaved the way\u201d for a lot of women in country, whether they realize it or not. Post Malone<\/a>, Harry Styles<\/a>, Halsey<\/a> and Rihanna<\/a> have all cited her as an inspiration.<\/p>\n Still, the country remains difficult for women to break into, compared to men. Two decades after Twain\u2019s star-making moment, radio consultant Keith Hill made headlines for saying that \u201cif you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out.\u201d Per his metaphor, if the genre is a salad, women are the tomatoes and men are the lettuce. The 2015 controversy is now called \u201ctomatogate<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2026, women in country music have made significant inroads, getting respect from major genre institutions like the ACM Awards and radio stations, though there\u2019s still a ways to go<\/a>. Twain says embracing originality is the path forward for country music, which she wants to take global.<\/p>\n