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Rapper Casper at »Rock am Ring« 2018: »Festival shows are often not the result of a career, but part of the beginning«
Photo: Thomas Frey / picture alliance / Thomas Frey / dpa
After a year and a half of being banned from concerts, Rock am Ring proudly presented the first acts for the 2022 festival program at the beginning of May. A total of two percent women could be seen there.
After a few additional bookings, ten women are to be counted among the 223 performers on the band photos on the line-up overview of the festival on June 9th.
Other summer festivals follow suit and advertise with line-ups at which no female artists are represented.
Incidentally, these festivals are co-financed by public funds, including the Federal Government's »Initiative Musik«, which advertises with the slogan »Neustart Kultur«.
"Restart No-Woman's-Land" would be a more appropriate term.
Because with almost entirely male line-ups, the festivals manage to shoot two birds at once when it comes to discrimination: They exclude women - and also communicate this publicly. Advertising with programs in which women are not or only marginally present helps to ensure that the false status quo gains validity. Given the impact of the pandemic, the sacrifices and sacrifices that have been demanded from all of us, these announcements must be interpreted as an open attack. A big slap in the face just in time for the summer relaxations.
The means of diplomacy - public panels, academic discourse - prove to be fundamentally ineffective not only in DAX boards, but also in the music industry. After years of dialogue and sympathetic, but apparently also superficial fires of solidarity, as a woman and musician you read nothing else in these line-ups than the message: “The world takes place without women. You can go home now or come to worship us. "
If you make comparisons with the music hotspots UK and USA or continental European with Spain, France or Scandinavia, it becomes clear that such line-ups are neither normal nor competitive in 2021.
All of the world's leading festivals strive for balance: from Primavera Sound on the Mediterranean beach in Barcelona to Airwaves Iceland, where fifty percent women played in 2019.
The argument of the local program directors that there are no women's bands - it is wrong.
The fact that women are so underrepresented at German festivals also prevents them from growing up in the first place: Festival shows are often not the result of a career, but part of their beginning.
I was also able to experience this happiness. Early invitations from the Glastonbury Festival, the Vieilles Charrues, the Montreux Jazz Festival, but also the legendary Haldern Pop were decisive for my development. I was still little known, but got slots on the main stages at very good times. That triggered so many things, they were
game changers.
I became visible, not only for the audience, but also for myself. This is how things work. This creates a cultural scene and the next generation of musicians, this is how the coral reefs emerge, into which we will later stage
dive
.
It is regrettable to admit that German bands are rarely found at international festivals, even though Germany is the third largest music market in the world.
I am convinced that a more feminine festival culture would also lead to a more interesting, independent music scene from which the avant-garde bands would tumble out.
Why don't the male headliners bare their teeth too?
Ultimately, however, it is not up to us musicians to answer these questions. It would not be up to us at all to explain these mechanisms, let alone point out them. Like our male colleagues, how much we would like to look calmly whistling at the starry sky and enjoy our groupies. I can't remember that the childhood dream of the pop star also contained sequences of socio-political discourses.
Quite the opposite: when you criticize the system as a musician, you are very eager to saw the branch you are sitting on. So why don't others point it out and fight for it? Why don't the male headliners bare their teeth or simply refuse to play festivals that don't have a strong female line-up? And why doesn't the Music Initiative make its flow of money subject to conditions? Does Olaf Scholz just want to be proud of his 2.5 billion "New Start Culture" or also what it is invested in? Why don't fans have more influence on the selection of acts?
It is embarrassing that we in the music industry stumble behind and need an extra invitation for equality.
Even the AfD Thuringia, which had sued the local parity law, has more women in the line-up in its parliamentary group than some music festivals.
We who like to be outraged against discrimination that happens far away: There is also a fight that is on our doorstep and that needs us.
"Men and women have equal rights" - this is how the gender ratio is formulated in the Basic Law of the Republic of Germany.
Dear live music in Germany, we have a problem.
Stop organizing panels, stop rolling arguments.
Bay women!