Gender equality at festivals

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chriswallace85 said:
I don't think that was the point he was making at all.
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My point was that it's not like sport whereby there's a physical and biological difference that prevents equality (at least in the most part). Men and women can make music equally as well as each other.
chriswallace85 said:
It's much easier for a group of lads to be in a band 'cos learning to play an instrument is, as you put it, seen as "a bloke thing to do"? Wharra load o' hoss shite.
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It has been far easier for men to form bands for a whole host of reasons. Including the one that @Muppet has just mentioned.
 


Muppet said:
There are all sorts of factors. I'm in a band, I've been in tons of rehearsal spaces and holy shit, they're intimidating places for women. If there are a few bands in, I'm regularly the only woman in the building.

I am really lucky to be in a band with lads who treat me as a friend and equal. They don’t talk to me like I’m stupid, they’d never in a million years try it on with me, they respect my opinions on what we play. A lot of women won’t have that experience.

I’m old enough to not care anymore, but when I was a teenager it would have been very hard to feel like I had a right to be there in amongst a building full of blokes.
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Why's that then? Genuine question just out of interest.

What band you in?
 
Muppet said:
Give over man :lol:
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It's true. I posted about it earlier in the thread.

The way our brains are wired (males being back to front and females being across) lends to certain learning patterns differently.

Women are on average far better at learning how to understand people and social interaction and men are better at understanding objects while alone.

There's lots of science to back this up.

So I imagine because of how many hours you need to sit alone learning an instrument to get any good on average more men will do it than women.

Obviously it's only an average. It's not hard and fast but if that's the case it would go some way to explaining why so many more lads learn instruments than girls.
 
James said:
My point was that it's not like sport whereby there's a physical and biological difference that prevents equality (at least in the most part). Men and women can make music equally as well as each other.

It has been far easier for men to form bands for a whole host of reasons. Including the one that @Muppet has just mentioned.
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Fair enough - perhaps it isn't.

Then again, when I tried showing our lass how to play guitar she complained that her hands were too small...
 
chriswallace85 said:
Why's that then? Genuine question just out of interest.

What band you in?
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Not a chance I'm telling you that.

It is an intimidating place if you're in a building as one woman to 20 blokes. I'm ok with it now, I just yell excuse me if I'm lugging gear up the stairs and I'm being ignored.

But I can't think of the last time I saw a female face. The place we go now is great, staff are really friendly, they look after the place and they make you a cup of tea, and the bins aren't minging and overflowing with KFC and Monster like most places. And even then, at some point I need to pluck up the courage to mention that they need a hygiene bin in the loo because having nowhere to change a tampon during a 3 hour rehearsal can be a problem for a lass. It’s not their fault, why would they know it’s a problem? Women are few and far between in the place.
chriswallace85 said:
Fair enough - perhaps it isn't.

Then again, when I tried showing our lass how to play guitar she complained that her hands were too small...
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I know the theory is that's not true. Guitars are designed for men's bodies though. St Vincent designed one specifically for women's bodies (lighter, fits around boobs) but it's $$$.
 
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Muppet said:
Not a chance I'm telling you that.

It is an intimidating place if you're in a building as one woman to 20 blokes. I'm ok with it now, I just yell excuse me if I'm lugging gear up the stairs and I'm being ignored.

But I can't think of the last time I saw a female face. The place we go now is great, staff are really friendly, they look after the place and they make you a cup of tea, and the bins aren't minging and overflowing with KFC and Monster like most places. And even then, at some point I need to pluck up the courage to mention that they need a hygiene bin in the loo because having nowhere to change a tampon during a 3 hour rehearsal can be a problem for a lass. It’s not their fault, why would they know it’s a problem? Women are few and far between in the place.
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:lol: Spoil sport.

Why do you think that is?
Muppet said:
I know the theory is that's not true. Guitars are designed for men's bodies though. St Vincent designed one specifically for women's bodies (lighter, fits around boobs) but it's $$$.
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I know.
 
weebil64 said:
Seeing a lot of coverage about male/female equality split in regard to festival line-ups. Should this even be a thing? Shouldn't the bill be based on popularity and appeal rather than gender equality?
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It's getting ridiculous, they will be frantically looking for a black transgender reassigned lesbian in a wheelchair next.

Surely groups and awards etc should be based on quality and skill rather than other stuff.
 
Sidewinder2 said:
It's getting ridiculous, they will be frantically looking for a black transgender reassigned lesbian in a wheelchair next.

Surely groups and awards etc should be based on quality and skill rather than other stuff.
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I've heard they're REALLY good, defy definition.
 
James said:
Yes it should and it's a reflection of an industry that is archaic. No reason that a line up should be dominated by male artists and bands in 2020.

I'm not saying you need to split it perfectly down the middle, but come on man, there are festivals out there seemingly terrified to book anything other than blokes with guitars. It's weird.
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Is your cd collection/ipod/spotify or whatever history broadly split down the middle or is there significantly more male artists than female artists?
 
42 said:
What's the actual gender split for musicians? Is it 50/50 as if not then lasses will be getting more representation.

If you take something like heavy rock, punk & metal its very male dominated. So having a 50/50 split at download is just silly.
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Suzi Quatro will always have a job
 
General Zod said:
Is your cd collection/ipod/spotify or whatever history broadly split down the middle or is there significantly more male artists than female artists?
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That is of zero relevance to this thread.

For what it's worth, I've just looked at my Spotify and of the 25 albums saved for this weeks listening, ten of them are female fronted artists or bands. Sometimes it'll be higher, sometimes lower.
 
Over half the performers in the Brits the other week were black/mixed race, despite them only making up a tiny portion of the population ~5%.
Should we have been telling Stormzy to take a hike because he's being replaced by an Indian singer no one has heard of, or Dave that he's not allowed to perform because we need more white people?

Ridiculous. Certain genders, races, and areas of the country/world have always been over/under represented in music. It's just a culture thing.
 
James said:
That is of zero relevance to this thread.

For what it's worth, I've just looked at my Spotify and of the 25 albums saved for this weeks listening, ten of them are female fronted artists or bands. Sometimes it'll be higher, sometimes lower.
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Looks like the point of the question went over your head
 
James said:
Yes it should and it's a reflection of an industry that is archaic. No reason that a line up should be dominated by male artists and bands in 2020.

I'm not saying you need to split it perfectly down the middle, but come on man, there are festivals out there seemingly terrified to book anything other than blokes with guitars. It's weird.
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Any decent female guitar based groups?
 
James said:
Think the thread went over your head.
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The point was that the line ups should broadly reflect what people are buying/listening to. If you make a genuine effort to broadly listen to/buy roughly 50:50 then at least you wouldnt be a hypocrite, otherwise its not really about what you as an individual personally listen to, its about what people who go to the festivals listen to, if that averages out at roughly 50:50 then fair dos
 
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