Inclusive Curation - Creating Balance In Live Music

It is absolutely no secret that the music industry is flooded with men and that there is a severe lack of women. If the genders were placed on a set of proverbial scales, the side with all of the men on it would crash through the floor at how overloaded it is. Where this began is not incredibly clear to me but like a lot of industries and really many facets of life, men assert their will and dominate anything that they can. As a result there is a huge imbalance between the genders and very few women that involve themselves in music. Whether it's as a musician, working for labels, promoters, live sound, engineering or one of the many other roles within music.

This is due to an existing culture of sexism ingrained in music that makes women feel unwelcome and hesitant to involve themselves in situations that would subject them criticism, ridicule and general feeling of not belonging. It is not because women enjoy music less than men. No one should have to experience anything remotely close to this in a professional environment. As people (men) in the 21st century slowly come to their senses and realise that they consistently marginalise women and really anyone that identifies outside of the traditional binaries, it creates more room for discussion surrounding the gender imbalance in music.

Though there have been many successful female musicians over the years, when you look back through the 60's, 70's 80's 90's and even the early 2000's a lot of them were singers. These days however there are certainly far more women picking up instruments and expressing their talents as song writers and musicians, bucking traditional trends. So why, if there are more women than ever involving themselves in music, is there still a glaring gender imbalance in live music? Why if women enjoy music as much as men, are live music events not curated in a way that is considered to be inclusive? Despite musicians often claiming to be forward thinking progressive types, there is obviously still a culture of sexism that persists.

A big part of it is the culture within the media and entertainment industry. Promoters may think that they book in merit but it is these industries that directly inform companies and promoters of what is popular and this is a majority of male artists. So to them it may appear that there are more men in music than women. Regardless it would be ignorant to believe that male acts are more talented or worthy of merit.

A couple of recent examples that display this imbalance are Spilt Milk Festival that featured only two acts with women out of 16, UNIFY Festival that had 2 out of 26 acts featuring and Strawberry Fields whose initial lineup announcement featured none at all. These festivals haven't actually happened yet, these are just announcements, just to give an indication of what 'recent' means here. All three faced severe backlash from the public with Spilt Milk going on to thank people for speaking up about the issue saying that they would announce more female acts on their second announcement as a result. This is a complete cop out. The company gets to appear as though they care about the issue when in reality it was only once their image was being damaged that they addressed the problem. This is reactive as opposed to proactive.

UNIFY was even worse. A staff member of a Melbourne based promotions and touring company that closely associates itself with UNIFY took to the comments section of a Facebook post offering his resolution to the issue "Maybe women should just start better bands". Thanks, we've got a fucking Aristotle over here. What a profound statement. I spoke to a handful of women I know personally from the music scene about this and they are in agreeance that in music, women have to prove themselves beyond what would be reasonably expected from male acts in order to validate their art.

Promoters have a responsibility to make sure that their events are inclusive even if it means potentially diverging from the original line up they may have wanted. This is what recognising and relinquishing of privilege looks like. One person's preference is not more important than giving opportunities to those that may otherwise not have one. It's clear from recent events that the people buying the tickets would prefer diversity over "Merit" based line ups.

I know that when I was younger I certainly had many artists and musicians that I considered to be sources of inspiration. Without realising it at the time and only now that I reflect on it, do I realise that a majority of these people were male. A study conducted in 2004 by Penelope Lockwood at the University of Toronto aimed to look at whether or not same gender role models were important and found that women were more inspired by outstanding women rather than male role models. If more young girls are to pick up instruments they need role models and sources of inspiration that are setting an example for them to follow.

One huge issue in terms of how the imbalance between men and women is currently being addressed is that the solution is to merely add more female acts to these lineups. This is a band aid to a bigger problem and does not actually tackle the sexism issue in music. It's very important as a first step but not entirely what is necessary to change persistent problems in music. Men speaking on behalf of women offering a solution to a problem that they have never experienced themselves is not going to get results.

I am 25 years old, male, white, I come from the middle class, I'm an atheist and more or less straight. There is literally no aspect of my life that has ever meant I would be marginalised in any way. So I can't adequately imagine this issue from any perspective other than my own. That's why in the week or so that I had in between reading this lecture and writing about it I talked to a handful of my friends about what they believed would bring the biggest results. Men need to enact change in other men. It's a sad fact but we are more inclined to listen to each other. So this means calling out unacceptable behaviour at shows and helping to create a safe and comfortable space for all people and believing women when they speak about these issues. It won't equate to more women on line ups but it initiates a much needed culture change.

At the end of the day music festivals supposedly put together by forward thinking creative's should be more diverse than Australian parliament (Women in Australian parliament are under-represented at a rate of 29%).