Written by Julianna Iovino
In alternative rock, or specifically the more emotional and confessional sub-genre known as
“emo,” for “emotional,” names like Hayley Williams from Paramore or singer Avril Lavigne are
often the first female representations that come to mind. However, the alternative rock and emo music scenes have vastly more women creating music who are often forgotten and rarely given the same attention as their male counterparts. From festivals to awards and record labels to college classrooms, there is an inequality between men and women in the alternative music industry.
Alternative/Emo music festival When We Were Young Fest announced its 2024 lineup at the end of 2023 with about 50 bands. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the disparities in this genre, only two of them had a woman in the group, making for a total of two women artists in the entire show.
After receiving immense backlash for this from fans of female alternative artists on social media, the When We Were Young Fest coordinators added more women into the lineup, especially bands that were female fronted, who many alternative music fans believed should have been included in the first place. Daisy Grenade, the alternative music duo made up of Dani Nigro and Keaton Whittaker, are one of the female fronted artists that were a later addition to the When We Were Young Festival lineup.
Photo of Daisy Grenade - Whittaker (left) Nigro (right) // Provided by Ashley White - Photo by Jamie Rice
“I do think that misogyny in this scene, and women and non-male people not getting their
flowers is a huge problem,” Whittaker said.
“I think it's very cool to have a [big] festival [receive] criticism and listen to it” She added,
praising the festival for their response to the backlash, “I think that's rare and it's really cool that they...heard what people were saying and they tried to correct it.”
This festival is one of many examples where women are not getting the recognition they deserve in this music genre.
At the beginning of the Vans’ Warped Tour, a traveling music festival for alternative, emo and punk rock music, it was praised for its amazing alternative music acts. However it was also heavily criticized for its lack of women artists. At the Vans’ Warped Tour in 2014, only 6 percent of the performances had women artists, according to research conducted by journalist Megan Seling for the now defunct news site, Wondering Sound.
“There was a female band that we would try to get out to come out on Warped Tour, but they didn't come out,” said Kevin Lyman, the founder and producer for Vans’ Warped Tour, “there [was] a whole string of female acts that would come out on Warped Tour, but there [were] others that I wish we had, that we couldn't get.”
“The Warped Tour production crew was predominantly female,” Lyman added.. Many of these crew members still work with Lyman today and will be joining him on his new tour Summer School, a smaller scale alternative music tour that features six acts, half of which are female fronted.
There were still many female artists breaking out and staking their claim at the Vans’ Warped Tour, with award-winning and platinum record holding artists like Katy Perry and Paramore making tour debuts there, despite women being the minority.
Shira Yevin, from the all-female band Shiragirl, was not only a prominent female artist during the 2004 Warped Tour, but also a huge advocate for women in alternative music.
“I approached Kevin to see if we could host girl bands in the girls garage tent [at Warped Tour],” Yevin said, discussing her advocacy for female artists, “And he said, “You know what, great idea. This is the 10th anniversary of the tour. Like let's do it next year.” but when you're 21, next year is like 10 years… so we decided to crash the tour… in a pink RV that we were toying around in that we color matched to a Barbie doll box.”
“The audience was half female, but… you weren't seeing those women on stage. And so when the doors opened the girls came running.”
Once the festival began and the RV show was realized, Lyman approached Yevin and invited Shiragirl on the rest of the tour that year.
“It was both like an invitation and a challenge you know, like ‘oh you think you're gonna hang with the big boys’… so it was great.”
After a successful run on the rest of the tour, Shiragirl showed up again to play Warped Tour the following year in 2005, and Lyman later created the Shiragirl stage for Warped Tour, which hosted all female acts. The band continued to play many Warped Tours and is also featured in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Warped Tour exhibit.
Photo of Shiragirl Performing on the Shiragirl Stage // Photo by Guillermo Prieto
The term “gritty in pink” was coined by the media to describe the Shiragirl Stage, which later became the name of the networking platform Yevin founded in 2020. Gritty in Pink was created to help empower and amplify the voices of females in all aspects of the music industry. The platform helps to network industry professionals and help women get hired into more industry spaces.
With gender inequality still prevalent in the music industry, Gritty in Pink is not the only platform dedicated to furthering female experience and careers in the music industry.
Girls Behind the Rock Show, created in 2015, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to helping in the advancement of women and marginalized genders in the music industry.
“The music industry is very male dominated, but we have the space to reach out to each other and support one another,” said Shamira Brown, director at Girls Behind The Rock Show and head of Digital and Influencer Marketing at Epitaph Records.
“It's just a way of just helping each other out,” Brown said when discussing what the organization offers to current and aspiring professionals, “I think in order for us to grow as people in our careers, we need a sense of community and Girls Behind The Rock show has built a community and a safe space for everybody.”
“When I first got into the industry… I was like, well, I don't know anyone, my personal life was in the music industry,” Brown explained.“I found Girls Behind The Rock Show, and I joined, and it felt like a breath of fresh air because it didn't feel like I was competing with anybody. It's more like we're all working together for a better music industry.”
Despite the community Brown became a part of, she still noticed that outside, there was still a lot of inequality for women in the industry.
“There is a gender gap,” Brown noted, “there's mostly men at the higher roles and the CEOs, the executives.”
While organizations like Gritty in Pink and Girls Behind the Rock Show are major advocates for females in the industry, the alternative music scene is still plagued by sexism.
“In my time as a studio manager, I felt looked down upon by many male artists, simply for being female,” explained Amber Pszolkowski, audio engineer and recent Bachelor of Music graduate from Five Towns College in Dix Hills, New York, where she was a studio manager.
“There would be instances where an artist would request a male studio manager instead of me or my female peers, without even having any knowledge of who I am or what my abilities are.”
This continued into the classroom, where Pszolkowski was often the only female student in her classes.
“It’s easy to feel ostracized in that kind of environment. It’s easy to not feel good enough when all you hear around you are male voices telling you what you should or shouldn’t do,” she explained, “Unfortunately, you feel a little knocked down before you even begin, and I think that’s what deters a lot of women from continuing with it. In turn, that results in the industry remaining predominantly male.”
“Many people have an image in their head of what a “producer” or “engineer” is supposed to
look like. Simply because you may not match that stereotype, the chances of you being taken
seriously in the industry are far less likely.”
Pszolkowski sees this for any genre of music, but as someone who has worked with alternative artists and is an avid fan of the genre, she especially sees this in the alternative music industry.
“In a field historically dominated by men, it’s hard to be looked at as equal when you don’t “look” the part,” Pszolkowski observed.
“That’s not to say the industry can’t be changed, but it only happens when people have open
minds.”
Wow. Very insightful!