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In Hebrew mythology, in the beginning, God created Adam and Lilith from the same dirt, and they walked together in the Garden of Eden — but when Adam told Lilith to be subservient to him, she said no because she was free and cool and sexually wanton and possibly a demon. So, she left the garden and then God created Eve from Adam’s rib. She was better than Lilith at following directions, but still not great at it because she ate an apple, and then so did Adam, and they both left the garden and had many babies who had many babies. At some point down the line, Sarah McLachlan was born; then, in the mid-nineties, McLachlan was frustrated at the amount of play women were able to get on the radio and at festivals, so she started Lilith Fair, a traveling music festival all about positive feminist vibes with an all-female lineup. Some people said, “That’s a terrible idea!” But the smart people who had eaten apples and talked with snakes and mated with demons and knew right from wrong and good from bad said, “That’s cool!” It was called Lilith Fair.
The first Lilith Fair was 20 years ago this summer. (Read the oral history here.) That’s 20 years of feminism, criticism, festivals, new artists, changing tastes, the iPod, Napster, Spotify, and all the things that make us think we’ve come so far in the music industry. And maybe we have! But where are we right now? We decided to look at the gender ratios at this year’s biggest festivals to find out how much play women in music are getting today — and frankly, the result was super disappointing.
See?
PHOTO: Graphic created by Emily Kemp
Now, a few words about our (well, my) methodology. I didn’t compare to past years’ lineups to see if there’s a trend; this is only where we are, right now, in the summer of 2017. And I didn’t take into account how many songs each act got to play and weigh them accordingly — a headliner counts as much as a new artist at the bottom of the lineup — because the point isn’t that we need female superstars. We have female superstars. The point is that we need a festival culture that’s inclusive and varied.
To calculate the stats above and below, I looked at the lineups of some of the biggest festivals and then researched the acts to see which of three categories — all-male band or male artist; all-female band or female artist; mixed-gender band or nonbinary artist — they belonged in. Lineups are subject to change, of course, so I’d estimate there’s a very small margin of error here.
Our goal was to find out if a person could go to a given festival and see a decent amount of women on stage or if she’d have to travel back in time to 1997 to make that happen. So, here’s the breakdown (percentages are rounded to the nearest integer)…
…for a grand total of 116 acts that are 100 percent dude. As far as the women go…
Coachella: 163 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 116 or 71%
Female artists or all-female bands: 24 or 15%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 23 or 14%
FYF Fest: 169 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 146 or 86%
Female artists or all-female bands: 14 or 8%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 9 or 5%
Lollapalooza: 169 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 132 or 78%
Female artists or all-female bands: 20 or 12%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 17 or 10%
Governors Ball: 67 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 52 or 77%
Female artists or all-female bands: 10 or 15%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 5 or 7%
Bonnaroo: 108 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 84 or 78%
Female artists or all-female bands: 13 or 12%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 11 or 10%
Outside Lands: 68 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 45 or 66%
Female artists or all-female bands: 14 or 21%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 9 or 13%
Starry Nites Music Festival: 35 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 17 or 49%
Female artists or all-female bands: 6 or 17%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 12 or 34%
Austin City Limits: 159 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 196 or 60%
Female artists or all-female bands: 31 or 19%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 32 or 20%
Pitchfork: 41 total acts
Male artists or all-male bands: 25 or 61%
Female artists or all-female bands: 11 or 27%
Nonbinary artists or mixed-gender bands: 5 or 12%
Obviously this isn’t every festival, and we’re not calling out the festivals mentioned here, or their bookers, or their acts. It’s a pervasive problem that has no clear cause (besides, you know, the patriarchy) and even fewer solutions (except, of course, increasing diversity by just booking more female and nonbinary artists). Perhaps there are explanations, if not justifications; men certainly boost their numbers by having dozens of DJs at a fest. But at the end of the day, the question isn’t “Why is it like this?” And the conversation hasn’t yet reached the point of “What can be done?” The question, especially for those who doubt that we still live in a sexist world, is “Can you look at these numbers and really think they’re at all fair? Does this seem right to you?”
This particular disparity, unlike, say the Hollywood wage gap, isn’t an issue that makes many headlines, but maybe it will soon. The musicians are certainly aware of it; Ellie Goulding recently tweeted about the lack of female headliners, and Sarah Barthel of Phantogram told Marie Claire what it’s like to play male-heavy fests:
Maybe being the only women really is cool, but maybe it’d be even cooler to get a few more on the lineup. Maybe, 20 years after Lilith Fair, we need another strong dose of “woman power.”
RELATED: Why Tegan and Sara Think Music Festivals Today Are ‘Absolutely Embarrassing’
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