The pandemic has overshadowed the issue of gender bias in music.

Now is the time to take back the narrative.

As UK music venues reopen and the country prepares for its first uninterrupted festival summer since the COVID-19 pandemic, musician, postgraduate student, and co-creator of the #FemaleFocus scheme Andrew Harrison argues that we must redouble our efforts to make the music industry an inclusive space for women.

It is November 2021, and I am lugging a drum kit into a musty, dimly lit room in South London. The band I play in have just finished a month-long tour of the UK, rescheduled from March 2020. I have just recovered from COVID, and I am exhausted. It feels miraculous that gigs are happening at all.

That night, we are playing at The Windmill in Brixton, the cultural hub of the UK’s post-punk scene where bands like the Mercury-nominated Black Country, New Road cut their teeth. On the front door, there is a poster that says LADIES NIGHT at the top.

The monthly event is run by BC,NR bassist Tyler Hyde, and features an all-female line-up of local bands and singer-songwriters. There is no headliner. The order of the sets is never publicly announced, and gig-goers are encouraged to arrive early and watch everyone.

After 2 years of mass redundancies, tour cancellations and venue closures, events like this are a timely reminder that the music industry cannot rest on its laurels. Although the existential threat of the pandemic appears to have subsided (for now), the music industry is still highly unequal. One 2022 study suggests that only 2 percent of all music producers are women, while another from last year found that 12.9 percent of songwriters are women. In more practical roles, the picture is just as bleak. A 2021 report suggests that 86 percent of top music executives and nearly half of all music managers are white men.

Despite the pandemic offering the chance for a reset, UK festivals have broadly maintained their bias towards male performers. In 2021, The Guardian aggregated the gender balance of post-pandemic festival line-ups, revealing that only two festivals hosted more female acts than male. While a handful get close to a 50:50 split, the majority are heavily male dominated. Some, like Creamfields Festival, feature line-ups that are over 90 percent male. This year, as investigated by the BBC, only 13 percent of UK festival headliners are female.

Why has the music industry responded to these disparities so sluggishly? One reason is undoubtedly a lack of ambition on the part of festival and venue bookers. Faced with losses from the pandemic and a brutally overcrowded market, event companies are more incentivised than ever to stick with the status quo: male-dominated line-ups. Using this logic, diversity can be framed as antithetical to commercial viability, even though gender balanced festivals like Deer Shed repeatedly prove this wrong.

Another explanation is, unfortunately, cultural. Male-dominated music subcultures perpetuate the toxic idea that female artists are somehow less of a draw. If they were any good, the thinking goes, they’d be packing out Wembley like the men are. This is both deeply misogynistic and self-fulfilling. Like in sport and stand-up comedy, women are excluded by pervasive sexism, and the resultant dominance of men is interpreted as a sign that women are simply less capable.

As with the seemingly never-ending debate about affirmative action in the United States, the question of whether to purposefully correct gender bias is often framed as a matter of fairness. Critics maintain that the modern culture of diversity is unfair to both men and women. It breaches the sanctified principles of the free market that, supposedly, allow the cream to rise to the top.

This brand of cultural conservatism provides convenient ideological cover to those who benefit, financially or otherwise, from a gatekept music industry. Working as a touring musician for nearly a decade, I have seen how purposive action at every level – not resignation to an imaginary meritocracy – quickly transforms venues, tours, and festivals into inclusive spaces.

Small venues can follow the lead of Guildford’s Boileroom, which employs a team of female sound engineers, show reps and promoters, and sponsors training programs to provide women a foothold in these male-dominated roles. On a wider scale, over 500 festivals and music organisations across Europe have signed the Keychange pledge. By promising to curate and staff their events inclusively, signatories like London’s Wide Awake – a new gender-balanced music festival – exemplify how the UK’s events industry can return a more welcoming place.

After over a decade of cuts to the arts sector, we cannot trust the government to make these changes for us. Just as the experimentation of early trendsetters spawns tomorrow’s radio hits, so can the post-pandemic agenda be set by ambitious independent promoters, labels, and venue owners. These are the foot soldiers of the industry, unbound by any commitment to corporate profiteering. Once they prove that the future of music is female, the apathetic label conglomerates and cautious event bookers will follow their lead.

The #FemaleFocus scheme, run by myself and colleagues at The University of Nottingham, aims to demonstrate how systemic change begins in our country’s local art spaces. By curating female-only line-ups with secret set times, it places the issue of gender bias at the forefront of gig-goers’ minds. Just as the Windmill’s Ladies Night inspired us, we hope to inspire other creatives to embrace the ethos of initiatives like Keychange and unlock the creative pathways women are often discouraged from exploring.

As we’ve seen with the ongoing effort to democratise STEM degrees and jobs, the music industry can ensure its future health by acknowledging and addressing its gendered prejudices and nurturing female role models. Women should be able to watch music and say I could do that – whether they are talking about the musicians and road crew or the lighting and sound engineers. By boldly and creatively tackling gender bias at every level, we can make that happen.