Reading and Leeds Festival: Where are the Women?

Could this year’s festival be a flop? Reading and Leeds have failed women in music with their heavily male dominated lineup which was met with waves disappointment on social media.

On February 11th 2020, Reading and Leeds Festival released their famous yellow poster, revealing this year’s lineup. The festival has been an annual occurrence since 1961 and is the big music event we all look forward to every summer.

However, this year's lineup announcement has been met by a lot of disappointment, especially on Twitter. It’s understandable that you’re never going to please everyone when it comes to fans being disappointed in their favourite act not being on the lineup or even just that there’s a mixture of rock, indie and rap artists when the festival was traditionally rock orientated, yet this is not the issue.

Where are the women?

This year’s festival is heavily dominated by male artists, when there are a huge number of female artists who are equally as talented as many of the confirmed artists, so there is no excuse when it comes to the sheer lack of diversity.

One of many Twitter users expressing their disappointment

In an age where we are gifted with artists such as Billie Eilish, Wolf Alice, King Princess, YONAKA, The Big Moon, Lizzo, HAIM, Fka Twigs, Lana del Rey (the list goes on!), why would such a huge festival want to miss out on the opportunity to have these bands and artists perform? Especially when they all have either very large fan bases or very loyal ones to draw in even more money for the festival.

Not only this, but the lack of women sends an awful message to young women in music right now. Imagine being a 16-year-old girl and looking at that line up for a festival you someday dream of performing at. It wouldn’t seem attainable at all, right?

One user even edited the poster, eliminating all the male artists and leaving behind the women, and there is far too much blank space, its frankly very embarrassing.

The poster, edited by a user on Twitter to show the small amount of female artists

In February 2019, Forbes released an article on the shocking statistics of how little the music industry cares for women, they reported that in the 2019 Grammy Awards, only 10.4% of nominees between 2013 and 2019 were women. They also found that women make up 21.7% of artists, 12.3% of songwriters and only 2.1% of producers. It’s sickening how there are so many incredible women in music who do not get the recognition or the opportunities they deserve.

Even women that do make a successful career in music are often subject to sexual harassment and there is always a huge focus on appearance. It’s also known that there have been cases of men in positions of power in music taking advantage of their female artists such as the Kesha and Dr. Luke sexual abuse case in 2017 and the recent controversy around Taylor Swift and Scooter Braun, where Taylor was stopped from being able to perform her own music due to Scooter buying a back catalogue of Taylor’s old music from her previous record label. Unfortunately, abuse of power in music is more than likely not going to end any time soon.

So, where do we go from here? Will Reading and Leeds Festival listen to us? As more artists are continuing to be announced, will a wave of female acts to flood the line-up? Even still, is that a good enough resolution? Female musicians should not be an afterthought. We can only hope that next year will be different and until then, it is important that people continue to support their favourite female artists; buy, stream and download music from women you love, and continue to shout about them. Continue the anger and disappointment of festivals that are not inclusive of diversity. Attend local gigs that give a platform to women and minority groups. In 2020, people can and will do better, if we continue to show that this is unacceptable.