The boss of Reading and Leeds festivals says women are not marginalised. So why are so few on his bill?
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Version 0 of 1. On Tuesday night, Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe rattled off the new additions to this year’s Reading and Leeds festivals with the volume and enthusiasm of a small child on an ice cream binge. The Libertines, the Cribs, the Maccabees, A$AP Ferg, Everything Everything, Django Django … As the list went on, and at a pace that was rapidly becoming inaudible, one thing became abundantly clear. In the world of Reading and Leeds, female acts are all but non-existent. Of the 87 acts announced so far this year, 78 are all male, three are female and six are mixed. That’s an 89.6% all-male lineup, and that is not OK. And it’s not just Reading and Leeds. Isle Of Wight festival, T in the Park, End of the Road … all of these festivals are significantly male-dominated. Fifteen years into the 21st century, the music industry is looking more male than it has in a very long time. About a month ago, after he’d been presented his lifetime achievement award at the European festival awards, I interviewed Melvin Benn of Festival Republic, which puts on Reading and Leeds. I asked him why female artists were being so severely sidelined at festivals. His response? “This idea that female bands are sidelined as a suggestion is just not there. The truth is that there has been a historic lack of opportunity for young women to get into bands, and to be in bands, and I think that’s disappeared now.” How it would look if the Reading / Leeds line-up only included the acts that have a female musician in the band. pic.twitter.com/xpEgI0gNUB When I pushed him a little further, quoting the statistics of last year’s lineups (incidentally, these were in fact less shocking than this year’s), he repeated himself. “I don’t think sidelining exists, but there was a lack of opportunity. But there’s an abundance of opportunity now … For me, it’s never been about the gender of the band, it’s been about the quality of the band and I think increasingly female bands, female-fronted bands, entirely female bands, mixed bands … they’re just forever on the increase now, and gone are the days where a band was four guys. That’s gone now. It’s genuinely gone.” Except it genuinely has not. Related: 'No jerks, cops or oppressive behaviour': music's new wave of queer festivals Melvin Benn is not singlehandedly in charge of booking the festivals of which is he in charge. But for the managing director of Festival Republic to suggest that the festival bookings are made entirely based on quality, and to then book just three female acts, is frankly insulting. There are a few common defences for this huge, gaping gender divide. The first, particularly when it comes to Reading and Leeds, is that it’s merely a question of genre. People who cite this would do well to bear in mind that “male” is not a genre. Neither, despite the depressing frequency of the phrase “all-female band” in music journalism, is “female.” We cannot continue to perpetuate the tired and tiresome stereotype that men make better rock music, and are better at playing instruments. It’s so incredibly dull, and so incredibly wrong. Comparison. The T in the Park line-up so far. pic.twitter.com/LK1QbYQfAR It’s been nearly 20 years since Lilith Fair was created, after Sarah McLachlan became frustrated with concert promoters and radio stations that refused to feature two female musicians in a row. Understandably, many female musicians were frustrated with what they saw as the ghettoisation of women in music. Today in fact, one of the questions that women in music find the most frustrating to answer is: “What’s it like being a woman in music?” Because why should their gender even be relevant? The sad truth is though that as long as women are being so blatantly, malignantly ignored, fetishised or undermined by the music industry, their gender has to be relevant. This is not just a festival problem. But as an enduring and influential platform for both new and established artists, festivals like Reading and Leeds must shoulder some of the responsibility. Many bands start being played on the radio after making an impact on the festival circuit, which then translates to album sales and gig attendance – both of which the festival promoters take notice of when they’re booking for 2016. This is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken, and it needs to be broken now, before another generation of women become disenfranchised and, yes Mr Benn, sidelined. made this after seeing the leeds/reading version earlier. bands with at least one female member at download this year pic.twitter.com/lr2zCbBtzz |