Photo: Splash
Music fans have taken online to voice their concern that of over 100 acts booked for this year's Reading & Leeds festival, only nine are female.
Last night, it was announced that The Libertines would be joining Mumford & Sons and Metallica as headliners - with the likes of Frank Turner, The Maccabees, Kendrick Lamar, Everything Everything, Limp Bizkit, and Bring Me The Horizon joining a bill that already featured Royal Blood, Jamie T and more.
Now, fans with an eye for detail have noted that only nine of the acts announced are female or feature females: Wolf Alice, Azealia Banks, Marmozets, Alvvays, Hannah Wants, Kardiknox, Little May, Sam Fermin and Walking On Cars.
It's worth noting that there are still many, many more acts to be announced - and they do have a decent selection of the female acts on the circuit this summer. Warpaint, Brody Dalle and Angel Haze played last year, HAIM are in the studio, and it looks like St Vincent and Florence + The Machine are booked elsewhere. We can't see Lana Del Rey or Lykke Li braving the mud and the mess.
Still, we daresay there's a very high chance of the likes of Charli XCX, Maricka Hackman, Natalie Prass, Say Lou Lou, Charlotte OC, Indiana, Sisters, Ibeyi, Laura Doggett, Laurel, Shura, All We Are, SOAK, Rosie Lowe, Lapsley, Rae Morris and many more being added. It is a champion for new music, after all.
Here is the gender divide at R&L illustrated in GIF form, courtesty of CoS:
However, speaking of the lack of gender diversity at festivals, R&L boss Melvin Benn told Gigwise that "there's an abundance of opportunity now" for female acts to perform at festivals.
"The idea that female bands are sidelined as a suggestion is just not there," he said. "The truth is that there has been an historic lack of opportunity for young women to get into bands and to be in bands, and I think that has disappeared now. "I don't think there's any young women thinking of joining a band now that think, 'There's no point, because I'm going to be sidelined'. I don't think sidelining exists, but there was certainly lack of opportunity. But there's an abundance of opportunity now. The truth is it will just get stronger and stronger, it will grow and grow the amount of female bands that are there."
Benn continued: "For me it's never been about the gender of the band, it's been about the quality of the band, and I think increasingly female bands, female-fronted bands, entirely female bands, mixed bands... they're just forever on the increase now, and gone are the days where a band was four guys. That's gone now. It's genuinely gone."
Watch our interview with Melvin Benn below
