Lesley Fram, Angaleena Presley, Braelynn, Kelsea Ballerini, Danielle Bradbery, Cam and the CMT crew backstage before the CMT Next Women in Country event.

“Today, we possibly won’t address and fix the gender gap, but we will hear women who step up to those challenges,” CMT Senior Vice President Leslie Fram announced onstage from the Country Music Hall of Fame’s CMA Theater.

At CMT’s Next Women of Country, a panel devoted to exposing diverse voices in popular country music, Fram candidly interviewed RaeLynn, Angaleena Presley, The Voice’s Danielle Bradbery, Kelsea Ballerini.

The audience roared in applause as Fram introduced each panelist onstage.

RaeLynn, who performed at the CMT Awards Wednesday night in downtown Nashville, took the first seat and admitted she was nervous at the CMT awards, but was glad she made it through it. She seemed relaxed onstage sitting between Fram and Presley.

After greeting herself and entertaining the audience with her bubbly personality, Raelynn entertained the audience with her new song, “For a Boy.”

Lesley Fram announces the panel of CMT’s Next Women of Country.

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What comes to mind when you think of country music?

I’ll rattle off a few things that come to mine: trucker hats, sleeveless flannels, romantic relationships with your tractor, a fat lip full of Skoal, grizzly middle aged white dudes with two first names and southern accents, gun-loving radical conservatives still wearing cowboy hats even though they’re a long way from the rodeo or the wild west, a good ol’ boy drinking a damn cold American Budweiser in his American-made truck. Wagon wheels. Hootie. Yee-haw.

Now everybody relax—I’m not trying to offend. The sad truth, however, is that these are the tropes and cliches that pop into the minds of a good amount of the music-loving population. The reality is, they’re wrong.

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