FEATURE:
Stationery
PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Green/Pexels
Will the Narrative Regarding Women on Playlists Ever Change?
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THERE was some positive news…
quite recently when The Gender & Racial Disparity Data Report by Why Not Her? was published. It explored gender and racial disparity in U.K. radio. Included in the findings was the Top 100 Radio Airplay songs by gender/ethnicity, the Top 100 Songwriters and the Top 20 most played songs. For the first time, we saw equality and balance across many major stations. The BBC especially ensured that the top twenty songs on their playlists included women. It was a step forward from previous years. You can read the report here. It was good news that you thought would inspire sider change. I know it is impossible to collate this information. In terms of looking at the gender breakdown across all playlists for the past year. Every song that is included. You would find that there is hardly any gender equality present. Even big stations like BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 6 Music have so many programmes where the playlists are male-heavy. I am not sure how much progress has been made over the past year or so. With each passing month, we are getting incredible albums and singles from female artists. So many of the best and most interesting artists coming through are women. I know I have written about this and made these points. Things are not really changing. Even if the most popular songs played feature more women - as the recent gender and racial disparity report findings spotlighted, there are stations who are still struggling to include women. Some include no women at all in their top twenty songs! Others are incredibly poor when it came to the top one-hundred. If people may roll their eyes at my writing about this subject once more, that is because there is no movement. Stations seem to have this male bias. I can’t think of a single radio station that is doing enough!
Esch day, I look through playlists of programmes across several stations. Rarely do you see occasions where women are equal or the dominant force. Very few stations have a day of programming where female artists are in the majority. Almost this fear that this would be too much! That a fifty-fifty split is the best they have to do. Almost this forced compromise. That is as far as they can go. I think that there needs to be reasoning from stations. If nobody complains and there is not this outcry, then why would they change and improve?! I guess most listeners have that male bias too, or else they feel there is nothing they can do to make things better. Why do people not do more?! If you look at the music industry at large, there are very few male allies. Very few active voices standing with women and asking for more. It does seem a shame. This imbalance still runs through most festivals and areas of music. If there are steps happening there, things are not moving as fast as they should. Like radio, there are particular venues, festivals and sections where things are still favourable to men. Like they are the superior force and dominate music. An incorrect assumption through media that there is gender equality and proper movement. I don’t think that this is the case. It would be very easy to change things immediately!
PHOTO CREDIT: Brett Sayles/Pexels
Things do need to get better. Rather than stations doing little things and ensuring that their most-played songs feature gender equality, there has to be this consideration right across playlists. If you were to total the songs through all the major stations in a week and then break it down by gender, you would find men are still very much at the top. This does not reflect quality or the truth of modern music. When you realise that most of the best albums are being made by women, what justification is there for things being skewed towards male acts?! Is it a case of things have always been that way so why change?! Do stations think that little resistance means they do not have to look at themselves?! Maybe they truly believe that male artists have always been the dominant force so their playlists are fair. It is disappointing to constantly listen to stations where playlists could easily be balanced or put women in front but aren’t. If we want to see women represented, heard and feel valued, then every station needs to do a lot more! The issue is that they won’t. I do get the feeling that old ways die hard. That one step forward on some stations is met with static elsewhere. There needs to be this national movement to ensure, like festivals, that radio playlists are balanced. I don’t think anyone can name a major station that has already achieved this. It is jarring against a music scene where women dominate and have been for a very long time. What will it take to move the dial?! Short of more discussion and backlash from those in the industry – especially men -, I can’t see any real good news. We will see the same problems every year. It is a disservice to women putting them…
PHOTO CREDIT: Anthony 🙂/Pexels
IN the minority.