After a seemingly endless winter, Syracuse students have taken any temperature above freezing as a chance to break out their shorts and sundresses. Even though it’s not quite summer, it’s never too early to start dreaming about it, especially with tickets for summer music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo already going on sale.

But as these festivals announced their lineups, one thing was noticeably missing: female acts.

Immediately after Coachella announced its lineup, Slate noticed a gender gap. It edited a Coachella poster, which listed every artist set to perform, so the only acts that remained were female-fronted.

The result? A nearly blank poster with only 15 percent of the acts remaining.

This male-dominated lineup gives the impression that there is no room for women in music festivals or even in the industry itself. And even though this is far from the truth, it still can distort audience members’ perceptions and discourage future female acts. To better represent their audiences and the music industry, Coachella and other festivals need to revamp their lineups and include more women.

Coachella’s lineup this year isn’t unusual. According to a Buzzfeed article from April 2013, the first festival in 1999 still had a poor showing of female-fronted acts with just 16 percent.

Of course, Coachella isn’t the only male-dominated music festival; this problem spans the globe. Posters from England’s Reading and Leeds and Scotland’s T in the Park festivals both received the male-removal treatment and had results just like Coachella’s.

While festival lineups may be dominated by men, audiences aren’t. Fifty-five percent of art festival attendees are female, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. When women provide the majority of support for music festivals, they deserve acts that represent them.

That isn’t to say male-fronted or even entirely male groups don’t have a place in festivals. These popular acts have attracted huge audiences, so it’s obvious why organizers are reluctant to change their formula.

While no event needs to drop all of its male acts, artists who degrade women have no place in festivals. At 2013’s Warped Tour, Matty Mullins of Memphis May Fire shamed women in the audience for dressing in revealing clothing, saying that was no way to impress “real men.” Even though plenty of people called out Mullins, his band has been welcomed back for this year’s Warped Tour.

Still, it’s not as if female artists aren’t popular enough to headline a festival themselves. There are so many hugely successful women in music today — Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Beyonce, need I continue?

When six of Billboard’s Top 10 artists of 2014 are women, it’s hard to justify a lack of female representation. But unfortunately, festival organizers still won’t admit there’s a problem. According to Reading and Leeds festival CEO Melvin Benn, “gone are the days where a band was just four guys.”

Though he said this before the recent One Direction shakeup, Benn doesn’t seem to realize the irony of his statement. Of course, there are plenty of female acts in the world — but they aren’t represented at music festivals, especially the one he runs.

The music industry isn’t the boys club music festivals make it out to be. If they want to accurately represent the industry and their audience, festival organizers need to include more female artists.

But if organizers won’t listen to reason, perhaps its time we stop supporting them with our money.

Kathryn Krawczyk is a freshman magazine major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at kjkrawcz@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @KathrynKrawczyk.

Published on April 9, 2015 at 12:35 am