International Women’s Day (IWD) is today. A global day occurring this year on Sunday 8th March, it serves to recognise and celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere, it is inclusive and does not discriminate against specific countries, groups or organisations. There is always time to step up and stand up for equality, and it is not only women who can take a stand, and pave the way forward, for change.
The first official gathering of IWD took place in 1911, and was then already supported, by over a million people. With International Women’s Day now being a regular occurrence for more than a century, it is identified as a day which serves to support equality not only for women, but for gender overall. A way to re-address inequality, and unify us, instead.
With the movement having come so far, just what is 2020 supporting women to achieve, specifically within the creative industry?
2019, witnessed an ever growing number of women, redefining, reinventing and reigniting the music industry on their own terms. This year, one important focus for IWD is ‘Women Creatives’. Highlighting women pursuing creativity, and showcasing their achievements and work, to increase their visibility of their work within commercial projects, to ultimately promote their work, so they gain more recognition, and in turn, awards.
Inspiration, vision, tenacity are all common place foundations for female artists…
In 2019, ‘The 1975’ headlined at UK-leading music festivals Reading and Leeds. Fast forward to 2020, and the announcements for this year’s upcoming music festivals revealed that, out of the 91 artists first announced, only 20 of these are female or feature women.
Following criticism of Reading and Leeds festival for its heavily male line-up ‘The 1975’ frontman Matt Healy has since made a public announcement, in which he pledged to only play at gender-balanced music festivals, in the hopes of paving the way for other male musicians to take similar steps, to ensuring the equal representation of women, non-binary and transgender musicians, within the industry.
A pledge for male artists to be true allies, Healy commented: “It’s all about action…when it comes to big socio-political issues and governments are involved, sometimes action or protest can just be ignored. But when it comes to the music industry, we can change that. It’s not a geopolitical nightmare: it’s the music industry, and it’s something that if everyone gets on board, we can fix.”
So just how can the music industry do more to successfully reach, nurture and support upcoming female artists?
One international initiative which supports the transformative future of music, is the Keychange Initiative. By working to encourage festivals and music organisations to achieve a 50:50 gender balance by 2022, Keychange aspires to campaign against gender inequality which exists within the music industry, with growing support from firm advocates so far, including festivals such as the BBC Proms, Bluedot and Liverpool Sound City. Adding to this success, Barcelona’s Primavera festival reached the 50% target last year, and continues to meet it with its 2020 line-up.
Whilst initiatives like these are successful they are just the start of a bigger movement. Wireless festival for 2020, still only features six female artists across the 43 acts announced so far, and is just one of the many other major 2020 festivals which still represent a sadly stark gender split.
With visibility being one of the most critical and helpful aspects for driving recognition and feeding change, bands can certainly be using their voices and leverage to demand equality…
Being #EachforEqual means taking a stand against music industry inequality. The music Industry is full of talented creatives, who wake up every day fighting for what they believe in, hoping to challenge the universe. Whilst there is still a long way to go, before equal representation is pioneering at the forefront, 2020 looks to be a promising year for changes being made.
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