Gender equality at music festivals

[The Bronze]

Yesterday 45 music festivals signed up for 50/50 male/female gender equality in their line ups by 2022.

Music festivals pledge 50/50 gender equality

I love live music but I've always struggled to enjoy festivals because the numbers don't add up. I'm worried this doesn't go far enough.

Will a band with 3 male and 1 female count as 75/25, 50/50 or just as female since there's 1 in there. There's no mention of 50/50 split in the rest of the staff either. I need to know that the people working the bar and cleaning up after are split exactly down the middle.

No one seems to have crunched the numbers for the percentage of each ethnicity which should be featured on the bill. Should it represent the nation the festival takes place in or should it be divided based on global totals?

Would non binary people be allowed to play at all as that will mess up the percentages?

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[nightshade]

I would want good artists regardless of gender, if the most popular artists happen to be all male, then I don't see a problem with festivals having a majority of male artists.

 

[Professor Walsh]

On one hand I agree with you, @nightshade , an artist's gender doesn't matter to me as long as I like their music. On the other hand, though, even the most amazing female artists do have a tendency to end up one step behind the male ones. I think attempting to do a 50/50-solution for a while may give good female artist well-deserved time in the limelight. After all, it isn't merely how good you are that decides how popular you get.

 

[thetopher]

I think talent should be paramount when it comes to front-lining a festival, but I actually think there's a wide range of decent male and female artists about these days. In fact female artists tend to be the big leaders when it comes to solo music acts; Adele, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Beyonce etc. whereas I guess actual bands tend to skew male.

In terms of 'counting' gender I'd go with vocalists- the sound is the thing; if a band has a female vocalist then I think 'female-led band' no matter what; from Garbage, to Florence atM, to the Cranberries to Evenessence (remember them?) the gender of the vocalist is what I personally define as the distinct sound of the band, if that makes sense.
You would want the festival to 'sound' diverse (and good quality obviously) as much as anything.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

The one thing I always thought the Lilith Fair lacked was some dingleberries.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

The music spectrum seems to have split between male-dominated rock and female-dominated pop. The audience for rock is not one for pop and vice versa. I think "equality" should be from the lead singers, not necessarily the rest of the band because male and female voices are distinct but gender does not show up with who is playing instruments. This has nothing to do with talent - listen to Carlos Santana and his protégé, Orianthi Panagaris, and you will see that the Australian girl with the Greek heritage has exceeded his talents (and she has a nice blues alto voice and she looks as good as any girl in music).

Plus there is another consideration: how many male and female musicians of concert calibre are there? I would bet the population of rock musicians is skewed heavily toward males. Are we looking for an "affirmative action" / reverse discrimination initiative on the part of promoters and venue owners? We have enough in the way of unknown people doing backroom deals and responsible to no one else in the business already. And we don't need a casting couch in music - it did enough to movies.

 

[Buffy Summers]

If they can make money off of it, they will, full stop. So if you want more female acts, vote with your dollars.

Personally, I'd rather have people who actually play their own instruments be the criteria for a festival rather than gender.

 

[MarieVampSlayer]

The music spectrum seems to have split between male-dominated rock and female-dominated pop. The audience for rock is not one for pop and vice versa. I think "equality" should be from the lead singers, not necessarily the rest of the band because male and female voices are distinct but gender does not show up with who is playing instruments. This has nothing to do with talent - listen to Carlos Santana and his protégé, Orianthi Panagaris, and you will see that the Australian girl with the Greek heritage has exceeded his talents (and she has a nice blues alto voice and she looks as good as any girl in music).

Plus there is another consideration: how many male and female musicians of concert calibre are there? I would bet the population of rock musicians is skewed heavily toward males. Are we looking for an "affirmative action" / reverse discrimination initiative on the part of promoters and venue owners? We have enough in the way of unknown people doing backroom deals and responsible to no one else in the business already. And we don't need a casting couch in music - it did enough to movies.

But there is casting couch in music, I just don't know what they are called...mixtape couch?

 

[Mr Trick]

If they can make money off of it, they will, full stop. So if you want more female acts, vote with your dollars.

Personally, I'd rather have people who actually play their own instruments be the criteria for a festival rather than gender.

I agree with that argument on principal, but I still think the problem runs a bit deeper than that. Its about giving women the same opportunities than men and the culture changing as a whole. There are plenty of male led bands/male artists who don't shift records, yet they are not faced with the same huddles that female fronted bands are.

Like in films, the problem comes with the history of music and the gender in-balance at the entry level. You can't really blame music festivals for the lack of female artists because they are merely picking from the pool they've been given.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

So much for Lilith Fair.

 

[Athena]

I agree, to a point. I mean surely musical quality is better than a quota of male vs female, however some of the biggest acts in the world right now are women; Adele, Beyonce, Taylor Swift. They don't tend to play these festivals though.

I'm pretty sure a female led band would class as a female representation. Again, it's rare to find bands with a male lead singer and all female backing/instruments (does such a band actually exist that's not the Robert Palmer video for Addicted to Love?!)