While it may be a rare incidentfor the sun to shine on revellers during the Glastonbury festival, the sun shone down on the Pyramid stage last weekend but unhappilythere was no exception to prevalence of male acts executethere.
Writing in the Guardian last week, Pearson claimed that “acts with women in are lamentablyunderrepresented” and she went on to illustrate her point by editing the denoteposters for Glastonbury, Bestival, and Reading and Leeds festivals, removing aloneacts that do not contain at least one female band member.
The results, she describes, “are as striking as they are shocking: blank spaces flood what would otherwise be a crowded list of artists.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Pearson’s article revealed that Glastonbury is actually trackthe way among the UK’s most customaryfestivals, booking markedly more acts that contain women than some of their biggest rivals.
But don’t get too excited.
On the Glastonbury poster for this year, onlyabout a third (34 per cent) of all acts contained women – nothingless(prenominal)than a meagre attempt at equal bureau– but this figure dwarfs the 21 per cent that will push throughat Bestival and the downright disgraceful 17 per cent of acts that lineamentwomen at the Reading and Leeds festivals this year.
But pointthese figures belie the depth of the problem, because when you visitthe number of women appearing on the main stages at these festivals it reveals even greater inequality.
With the Rolling Stones, Arctic Monkeys, and Mumford Sons headlining Glastonbury this year, it was business as vulgarwith the same emeritusabsence of female artists and the same old (men’s) faces looking back at festivalgoers.
Over fifty men appeared on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage over the three days.
There were only eighterwomen, the majority of whom were relegated to the quieter mid-afternoon slots.
But at Reading and Leeds the picture is far worse.
Over a hundred men will entertain festivalgoers from the Main Stage, including the all-male headliners one thousandDay, Eminem and Biffy Clyro.
How many women will you see there?
Five!
So is this unequal representation entirelya direct consequence of the disparity within a music industry which is itself dominated by male acts?
This is sure enougha very real possibility, but with Emeli Sande’s ‘Our Version of Events’ 2013’s top selling album so far, and Rihanna, Britney Spears, and Taylor Swift featuring in the five dollar billbiggest selling singles of the year so far, we cannot doubt women’s commerciality.
Butdarnfestivals like Bestival and Reading and Leeds – Glastonbury, of course, last year famouslyhaveBeyonce on its Pyramid Stage – may reject thecellular inclusionof mainstream pop acts like those named above, we inquireonly consult music magazines like The Girls Are… to find that women are similarly present and popular in other genres too.
It seems to me that it is up to festival organisers to do a little more research to find female acts so that they can secure better (any?) gender representation on their stages; the success of Yoko Ono’s Meltdown, which headlined Siouxsie, Patti Smith, and Peaches, is a testament to how it can be achieved.
Photographed as part of UK Feminista’s Who Needs Feminism photos, one Glastonbury attendee wrote: “I need feminism because we need equal representation in all areas of society.”
In the immortal words of Lena Horne, “Ain’t it the truth”!
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Materials taken from Womens Views on News
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