A few days ago I was contacted by someone from the luxury fashion website Farfetch and the subject immediately caught my attention: "Where are all the female bands?" While one may think it doesn't have much to do with what I usually write about here, I have always said that I'm not going to be selective regarding the content of my blog as long as I believe in it and I am very interested in the topic for two very simple reasons. First of all, because Cultural and Gender Studies is something that I'm doing at university, hence something that I'm familiar with. But most importantly, because I'm a female that struggles to understand how in the 21st century there is still such an important gender gap, or gender hierarchy, in most aspects of our culture.
The infographic below focuses on three of the world's biggest festivals: Glastonbury in England, Roskilde in Denmark and Rock Werchter in Belgium. I have to admit I have never been to any of those festivals, or any other festival abroad, but I love music and I'm a bit of a pop culture geek and so I'm usually familiar with, at least, the names of the biggest artists out there, what they're doing or where they're playing. Despite not having been to any big festivals, I have always known that number of women on stage was significantly lower compared to the number of males performing and headlining the shows, but the statistics still shocked me. Only 17% of this year's performers were female and even a lower percentage of females were headlining those festivals.
The question that should now pop up in our heads is, "Why?" Is it a matter of popularity? Do you turn on the radio and find songs sung, almost exclusively, by male performers? Of course not. The audience is not picky. Some of the biggest stars right now are women: Ellie Goulding, Lana del Rey, Rihanna, Shakira, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Little Mix. Some of them may not seem "festival material" to you (who decides that, anyway?) but they're still artists who sell out arenas and have fans all around the world. How come most of them are not playing festivals? Tay Jardine and Sydney Sierota, from We Are The In Crowd and Echosmith respectively, recently gave an interview on what it's like to be a female musician on Warped Tour. While they said there's not "too much sexism", they did say that they have found themselves in awkward situations, such as not beint let on stage for their own show or being hit on, simply because they are women. Is that the reason? Could those things make a female uncomfortable when it comes to playing festivals? Would they rather play only their own shows, where they know what and who they're going to have to face? Or are they simply not getting hired to do so? In my opinion, that's more likely the reason why the numbers are so unbalanced. I struggle to accept that females are turning down offers to play festivals and I am instead more inclined to believe that most of those -very popular- female artists are not given the opportunity to do it - even if some of them could gather a crowd just as big, if not bigger, than any other male artist.
Take a look at the infographic below:
The question that should now pop up in our heads is, "Why?" Is it a matter of popularity? Do you turn on the radio and find songs sung, almost exclusively, by male performers? Of course not. The audience is not picky. Some of the biggest stars right now are women: Ellie Goulding, Lana del Rey, Rihanna, Shakira, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Little Mix. Some of them may not seem "festival material" to you (who decides that, anyway?) but they're still artists who sell out arenas and have fans all around the world. How come most of them are not playing festivals? Tay Jardine and Sydney Sierota, from We Are The In Crowd and Echosmith respectively, recently gave an interview on what it's like to be a female musician on Warped Tour. While they said there's not "too much sexism", they did say that they have found themselves in awkward situations, such as not beint let on stage for their own show or being hit on, simply because they are women. Is that the reason? Could those things make a female uncomfortable when it comes to playing festivals? Would they rather play only their own shows, where they know what and who they're going to have to face? Or are they simply not getting hired to do so? In my opinion, that's more likely the reason why the numbers are so unbalanced. I struggle to accept that females are turning down offers to play festivals and I am instead more inclined to believe that most of those -very popular- female artists are not given the opportunity to do it - even if some of them could gather a crowd just as big, if not bigger, than any other male artist.
Take a look at the infographic below:
Picture via.
Interview here.
Infographic courtesy of Farfetch.
Tania x
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