Dundee singer Be Charlotte has spoken out about issues with sexism in music on national television.
The music star, real name Charlotte Brimner, held a phone interview Jeremy Vine on his Channel 5 show on Friday.
She was contributing to a discussion about a YouGov survey which found just 13% of headliners at the UK’s top festivals this year are women.
‘We get half the respect of males’
Speaking to Vine, Be Charlotte said: “I think if it was as easy as women being good enough based on our talents then yeah, we would be headlining all the festivals.
“I think unfortunately the music industry as a whole for women and gender minorities – who are constantly underrepresented and not given enough credit – we do have to work twice as hard as our male counterparts in order to gain half of the respect that they receive.
“I believe that a lot comes from supporting women and young girls from grassroots levels to be confident enough to keep going and have that kind of support.
From the beginning, from my very first open mic night, everyone in my venue was all male.”
Be Charlotte
“Just to know that we can write songs, we can play guitar, we can be bands.”
The singer argued that more needs to be done to encourage diversity from when women start out on their musical journeys.
She added: “It’s amazing that we have so many female role models and I think it’s definitely on festivals and bookers to be booking women, but just from the beginning for the music industry (all the way) up, from my very first open mic night everyone in my venue was all male.
“When I go to a record label meeting, the whole team is male. When I go to a studio session it’s always male producers.
“I ran the first all-female songwriting camp in Scotland and, up until that point, all 60 women who came through the programme had never worked with another woman before.
“That’s the issue.”
TV presenter Jasmine Dotiwala and journalist Mike Parry also took part in the discussion, arguing over whether festivals should have quotas for the number of female performers.
While Parry disagreed with the idea, Dotiwala backed it.
“The biggest music acts in history and to today have been women.”@jasminedotiwala explains how gender quotas at music festivals could create more opportunities for young female artists to prove their talent.@mikeparry8 | #JeremyVine pic.twitter.com/b1pc9mO3YR
— Jeremy Vine On 5 (@JeremyVineOn5) May 27, 2022
She said: “The point of quotas on festivals and the reason we do this work is if you look at someone like Billie Eilish… just three years ago she was booked to play Glastonbury’s John Peel Tent.
“She was then promoted to the second-biggest tent and now she’s headlining one of the stages.
“Unless you give people quotas and opportunities they can’t prove to you how good they are.”
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